Kia’s rapid growth is on track, as it overtakes Hyundai in Australia

Ten years ago, Kia’s market share in Australia (2.6%) was less than a third of its major shareholder, Hyundai (8.5%).

However, the brand has spent a steady decade closing this gap, to the point where by 2022 Kia actually leads Hyundai in the sales race.

As of the end of September, Kia Australia had registered 60,200 vehicles, compared with 58,103 Hyundai vehicles.

That puts Kia in fourth place on the sales chart, and just behind Mitsubishi in third (60,523 units), ranking Hyundai down to fifth.

Although the respective product lines of the Korean brands do not exactly reflect each other, they compete in several important segments.

Hyundai has bragging rights in the small car market (17,218 units sold i30compared to 10,770 for Cerato), and small SUVs (9453 Konas compared to 7039 for Seltos).

However, Kia has turned the tide in mobilizing people (6096 Carnival sales compared to 1351 Starias), light SUV (7036 Stonic compared to 5595 Location), mid-size SUV (13,620 .) Sport sales compared to 12,839 Tucsons), and large SUVs (4928 Sorentos compared to 3302 Santa Fes).

Both brands are strong in electric vehicles by market-wide standards, one place behind Tesla. But Hyundai’s 2024 EV sales compared to the beginning of the year (897 Kona, 558 Ioniq 5and 569 Ioniq) gives it the edge over Kia’s 691 EVs (486 for EV6 and 205 for Niro).

The two brands also have their own areas of strength compared to the other.

Kia is dominating in the cheapest segment of the market with Picanto (3711) and Rio (3661), and the large car market is shrinking with Stinger (Sold in 1942).

On the other hand, Hyundai’s i20 WOMEN hot hatch (553 sales) has no direct Kia competitor, nor Palisade Extra large SUV (sales 3164), Sonata sedan (415) and Staria Load office van (2844 sales). Hyundai’s ‘N’ sports range is also unique, with no Kia alternative.