South Korea’s largest automaker Hyundai Motor Co. and its sister company Kia Motors Corp., whose sales in China took a 63-percent on-year plunge, continued to struggle in the world’s second largest market with sales sinking by double digits last month.

Hyundai Motor’s U.S. car sales in June, excluding the independent luxury brand Genesis, fell 21.7 percent to 52,894 units from 67,511 units a year ago. Kia Motors’ shipments slid 10.3 percent from 62,572 units to 56,143 units.

The sales decline was mostly due to a shift in their U.S. business strategy to focus more on profitability than shipment growth, the companies explained. Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors’ U.S. fleet sales - sales of vehicles to commercial, rental and government agencies - in the first six months of this year retreated 30 percent and 20 percent on year, respectively. The reduction in fleet sales dragged down their overall U.S. sales volume but should help improve the companies’ bottom line onwards. Fleet sales generally go to large organizations at a bargain.

In the January-June period, sales of Hyundai, excluding Genesis, dropped 10.1 percent on year at 336,441 units and Kia 9.9 percent at 295,736 units.

Among the 10 Hyundai models, only the Accent and Tucson did well. Shipments of the Accent jumped 60.2 percent in June on year, and Tucson 39 percent. Flagship models the Santa Fe, Sonata and Elantra fared worse compared to last year.

The two Genesis models, the G80 and G90, sold 1,276 units and 337 units, respectively, slightly less than the previous month.

Despite Kia’s lackluster performance, three of its flagship models - the Forte, Optima and Cadenza - managed to thrive. The Cadenza sold 502 units in June, up 147.3 percent against the year-ago period. The Forte sold 11,387 units and the Optima 11,252 units to grow by 24.2 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively.

By Woo Je-yoon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]