Beautiful Morning for Kia as city car tops Q1 sales

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Beautiful Morning for Kia as city car tops Q1 sales

Kia Motors’ Morning was the best-selling car in Korea in the first quarter, a sign that consumers are turning to fuel-efficient, inexpensive city cars.

According to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, 23,462 Mornings were sold from January through March.

Morning, sold as the Picanto overseas, gets an impressive 15.2 to 17 kilometers per liter (40 miles per gallon) and costs 9 million won ($7,994) to 13 million won.

GM Korea’s city car Spark, which is similar to the Morning in price and fuel efficiency, ranked No. 5 in sales at 15,333, while Hyundai’s subcompact sedan Accent was tenth.

Hyundai Motor’s steady best-selling models filled out the top five spots.

The full-sized sedan Grandeur, (known overseas as the Azera), was the runner-up in the first quarter with 23,286 cars units sold, while Sonata was third at 21,920. Avante (Elantra), which was last year’s top seller, was fourth at 21,285.

Kia’s K Series had three spots in the top 10: the K3 sedan was sixth, the K5 (seventh) and K7 (ninth).

Renault Samsung Motors, which has suffered a sharp sales decline in recent years, managed to put one model in the top 10 list. Its midsize sedan, the SM5, was in eighth with 7,694 cars were sold.

Meanwhile, German brands continued their dominance of the foreign car market with eight models in the top 10, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association.

The BMW 520d was No. 1 at 2,633, followed by Volkswagen’s Tiguan 2.0 TDI SUV at 1,462 cars and the Mercedes-Benz E220 CDI at 1,177.


By Joo Kyung-don [kjoo@joongang.co.kr]

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