The president of the brand, Emilio Herrera, points out that one of the challenges he will face is the strength of Chinese companies.
The Kia car company plans to sell 62,000 units in Spain this year, 6.3% more than the 58,412 vehicles sold in 2022, and has also set itself a target
Maintain the profitability of your dealers at a similar level to the end of 2022, when it was 3%.
According to him
general manager of the brand, Eduardo Dívar, last year the company achieved a turnover of around 1,200 million euros in Spain, an increase of around 10% compared to the previous year.
One of the main novelties for this year that has just started is the 100 percent electric EV9 model, which will become the company’s new “flagship”, of which about 500 have been ordered for Spain. With seven seats and a five-metre length, it comes on the market with a price of around 80,000 euros.
Kia has closed a spectacular year 2022 in Spain and Europe in which it has expanded its range of electrified models and won the two most important awards in the automotive industry: the “Car of the Year 2022” for the Kia EV6 and the
ABC Award for “Best Car of the Year in Spain” for the Kia Sportage.
Kia won this way and for the first time and
The most prestigious award in the automotive industry in Spain and celebrates its 51st birthday. For Eduardo Dívar, General Manager of Kia Iberia, “Receiving the ABC 2023 Best Car of the Year award is not only a recognition of the quality of our product, but also of the great evolution our brand has undergone in recent years. .”
The new Sportage has been a success from launch. Emilio Herrera, chairman of Kia Iberia, explains that “the new generation of the Kia Sportage
has a great acceptance in Spain, with more than 13,000 copies sold. The Sportage continues to rise in the ranks and has become one of the best-selling models in our country.” It is the continuation of the success of a historic model for Kia, the best seller of the Korean brand, which has been around for more than registered 174,700 copies in our country.
The chairman of Kia Iberia, Emilio Herrerahas pointed out that one of the challenges the brand will face in 2023, as well as other challenges in the sector, is the strength of Chinese companies, which they believe are competing in Europe in an “unfair” way due to the aid that they get.
“You can’t roll out a red carpet for the Chinese in competition
it is not 100% fair competition«, Herrera assured during a meeting with the press to present the results of the South Korean company in Spain.
According to him, there is no reciprocity between Europe and China in the car market, as sales there are “extremely complicated” and “increasingly difficult”. In this sense, he has questioned whether the Hyundai brands (the group to which Kia belongs) can reach 100,000 units sold in China this year, when before they sold “more than 600,000”.
«What should not be forgotten is that the units arriving in Europe
They are already subsidized by the Chinese government and here they benefit from all the help. This is what Biden (the president of the United States) has done with the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), that anything not produced in the United States is not supported. I’m not saying you have to do this, but at least you can’t lay a red carpet for the Chinese if the competition isn’t 100% fair. At least there is reciprocity with a free trade agreement,” Herrera appreciated.
Regarding the progress of Chinese brands in Spain, the manager of Kia Iberia has marked MG and Lynk & Co (with its subscription model) as the only ones with a certain volume, while the rest
they are at quite “low” levelsthough he has warned that they are “starting” and their grades will improve.
However, he has acknowledged that they have “improved their quality significantly” since “they understood” that,
through electrical products It was the best way to get to Europe and he even pointed out that some models are among the best rated in Euro NCAP, the European body that tests the safety of vehicles on the Old Continent market.
“Since European regulations want electric cars and there’s a lot of help, we’ve put everything on a plate for them,” he added.
On the other hand, the president of Kia Iberia has urged the Spanish government
encouraging the purchase of electric vehicles in the country through various tax measures, such as that the aid is not taxed via personal income tax or that users receive it upon purchase and only later.
These measures are the same ones requested by various organizations and companies in the Spanish automotive sector, such as the
Spanish Association of Car and Truck Manufacturers (Anfac)though he questions whether in a year with several election calls in the country some of these requests will be met.
Likewise, he has criticized the difficulty of installing electric vehicle charging stations in the country. In fact, the sector points to the need to establish a solid charging network to boost the purchase of this type of car in the country.
In this context, he described the level of car park electrification in Spain as “appalling”, as in 2022 the percentage of passenger cars of this type “did not even reach 10%”, while the average in Europe is around 20. %.
Source: La Verdad
I am Mary Fitzgerald, a professional journalist and author of the Today Times Live. My specialty is in writing and reporting on technology-related topics. I have spent the last seven years extensively researching and understanding the field of technology so I can properly inform my readers about developments in this ever-evolving world.
