Hyundai Motor Co. and its sibling Kia Corp. have set a target to sell 7.39 million units together across the globe this year with more focus on premium cars and new growth engines after delivering the world’s third-largest 7.23 million units last year.
Hyundai Motor and Kia announced in regulatory filings on Friday that they shipped 4.142 million and 3.089 million units, respectively, in 2024. Their total shipments fell short of their original goal of 7.44 million units.
Hyundai Motor saw its global sales down 1.8% from a year ago, whereas Kia’s sales added 0.1% driven by its historic high car shipments since the company’s inception in 1962.
Kia’s previous record-high car sales were 3.087 units in 2023.
Hyundai Motor and Kia’s car sales abroad in 2024 reached about 5.98 million units, accounting for more than two-thirds of their total global car sales.
Based on the filings, the Korean auto duo is estimated to have retained its No. 3 position in the global car market for three consecutive years last year in terms of sales volume.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen Group are expected to stay at No. 1 and No. 2 after selling about 10 million units and about 9 million units, respectively.
EVS, HYBRID CARS AND SUVS DRIVE SALES
Hyundai Motor and Kia are projected to report stellar earnings for 2024 thanks to strong demand for their electric vehicles, hybrid cars and sport utility vehicles, which generate higher margin.
On top of that, Hyundai Motor Group’s luxury car marque Genesis fared well after delivering about 130,000 units last year.
The Korean carmakers are also expected to benefit from the strong dollar versus the Korean won in earnings in the fourth quarter as they sell more cars abroad than at home, according to an official in the auto industry.
For the first nine months of last year, Hyundai Motor posted 11.4 trillion won ($7.7 billion) in operating profit on sales of 128.6 trillion won, while Kia posted 9.6 trillion won in operating profit on sales of 80.3 trillion won.
For 2023, Hyundai posted 15.1 trillion won in operating profit on sales of 162.7 trillion won, while Kia posted 11.6 trillion won in operating profit on sales of 99.8 trillion won.
The official expected both Hyundai Motor and Kia would see double-digit operating profit margins from last year’s business.
In 2023, Hyundai Motor and Kia reported operating margins of 9.3% and 11.6%, respectively.
HIGHER SALES WITH PREMIUM CARS AND FUTURE GROWTH DRIVERS
They have set a target to sell 7.39 million units in 2025 – 4.17 million for Hyundai Motor and 3.22 million for Kia.
This is 2.2% higher than last year’s total shipments but lower than last year’s target.
Hyundai Motor Group said the company will focus more on ways to maintain its position as the world’s third-largest car seller while improving profitability with sales of premium cars, said a company official.
The company will also strive to accelerate the development of future mobility technologies for EVs, software-defined vehicles (SDV) and hydrogen fuel-cell cars.
Despite concerns about possible higher taxes on their cars exported to the US under the new Donald Trump administration this year, the outlook for their car sales doesn’t look that bad.
According to the US Department of Energy earlier this week, five EV models by Hyundai Motor and Kia are included in the 25 EV models qualifying for US tax credits in 2025 under the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), boding well for their car sales in the world’s third-largest EV market.
This is the first time for the Korean car duo to enjoy tax breaks for their EVs in the US, also the world’s second-largest car market, since the IRA was enacted in 2022.
By Jae-Fu Kim
hu@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.
