Hyundai Motor, Kia Expect cumulative sales to exceed 30 million units in the U.S. market this year
Mar 24, 2025
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Hyundai Motor and Kia have recorded cumulative sales of 29,333,995 units in the U.S. market since they began selling in 1986. This is the result of not only Hyundai Motor (17,116,065 units) but also Kia (12,187,930 units).
With 911,805 Hyundai cars and 796,488 Kia cars last year, both companies achieved the highest sales ever in the U.S., and Hyundai Motor and Kia ranked fourth in the U.S. market for the second consecutive year after GM, Toyota, and Ford.
Hyundai Motor and Kia plan to achieve cumulative sales of 30 million units in the U.S. market this year by further strengthening their position in the market with high marketability and flexible production systems.
■ cumulative sales of 20 million units in 32 years since entering the U.S. in 1986
Hyundai Motor and Kia's entry into the U.S. market began in January 1986. Hyundai Motor is exporting its sedan "Excel" produced at its Ulsan plant to the United States. In 2005, the 20th year of its entry into the United States, it completed its first local production plant in the southern U.S. state of Alabama.
Kia established the Kia U.S. sales corporation in 1992 and began selling Sepia in February 1994 and Sportage in November in the United States. Then, in 2006, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Georgia plant in West Point, Georgia, was held, and it was completed in 2010 after a three-year and one-month construction period.
Hyundai Motor and Kia exceeded 5 million units in 2004 after exceeding 1 million cumulative sales in 1990. Seven years later, in 2011, it reached 10 million units, and since then, sales have increased rapidly, exceeding 1 million units annually, reaching a milestone of 20 million units in 2018.
Considering that it took 25 years since sales began in the United States in 1986 to surpass 10 million cumulative sales, it achieved a remarkable 20 million sales in less than a third of the time.
The best-selling model in the U.S. market is Hyundai's "Avante (local name Elantra)." Avante began selling in the U.S. in 1991 and sold 3.88 million units by February. Next came Sonata (3.42 million units), Santa Fe (2.38 million units), and Tucson (1.87 million units).
Kia sold 1.83 million units of the Kia since Sorento began selling in the U.S. in 2002. Next came Sportage (1.66 million units), Soul (1.52 million units), and K5 (1.5 million units).
■ Diversify sales lineups and maintain high marketability to increase competitiveness
Hyundai Motor and Kia focused on actively responding to market demand, improving sales and profitability by diversifying their sales lineup to sports utility vehicles (SUVs), Genesis, and eco-friendly cars compared to the early days of entering the U.S. market.
Hyundai maintains a full SUV lineup that extends from the small SUV Venue to the large SUV Palisade, following the Kona, Tucson and Santa Fe.
Kia is also strengthening its competitiveness in the U.S. market, where SUVs are popular, by building a full SUV lineup starting with Seltos and continuing with Niro, Sportage, Sorento, and Telluride.
Hyundai Motor and Kia's SUV sales amounted to 1,284,066 units last year, accounting for more than 75% of the total sales, leading the sales of new cars.
In addition to
, Genesis, a premium brand, entered the U.S. market in 2016 and is targeting the U.S. premium car market.
Genesis sold 6,948 units in 2016, its first year in the U.S., and grew steadily every year from 2021 to last year.
In particular, last year, it sold 75,003 units on the back of strong sales of GV70 and GV80, surpassing 70,000 units in annual U.S. sales for the first time.
Hyundai Motor and Kia are also focusing their efforts on selling electric vehicles to lead the transition to electricity in the United States.
Hyundai Motor and Kia entered the U.S. electric vehicle market with the Kia Soul EV in 2014. Hyundai Motor's Ioniq EV was then released in 2017.
The annual electric vehicle sales of Hyundai Motor and Kia, which averaged about 1,000 units in the early stages of entry, reached 19,590 units in 2021, and began to establish themselves as major players in the electric vehicle market.
Sales rose sharply in 2022 with the launch of new cars such as the Ioniq 5 and EV6 based on E-GMP, a platform dedicated to electric vehicles, and the Genesis-branded electric vehicles such as the G80 electrified model and GV60, resulting in a whopping 337.5% increase in annual sales in 2022 to 58,028 vehicles.
We sold 94,340 units in 2023 and recorded the highest sales of 123,861 units last year, achieving 100,000 units sold in the U.S. for the first time in a year.
In terms of quality, Hyundai Motor and Kia are also receiving favorable reviews in the U.S. market.
For Hyundai Motor and Kia, four models were selected as the North American Vehicle of the Year (NACTOY, The North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year), including Telluride in 2020, Avante in 2021, EV6 in 2023, and EV9 in 2024.
In addition, Hyundai Motor and Kia won the "2025 Residual Value Awards" released by U.S. market research firm J.D. Power in November last year, with Kona Electric winning the electric SUV category and Telluride winning the third-row mid-sized SUV category.
Hyundai Motor and Kia plan to expand their lineup and maintain high marketability in the future, while producing hybrid vehicles in addition to electric vehicles at Hyundai Motor Group's Metaplant America (HMGMA), which began mass production in October last year, to quickly respond to the rapidly changing U.S. market.
Reporter Kim Hyung-joon hj.kim@carguy.kr
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
