Hyundai reports 4% drop in January-September sales

MANILA, Philippines - Hyundai Asia Resources Inc (HARI) announced yesterday a four-percent drop in sales to 14,883 units for the first nine months of the year from a year ago, citing global supply constraints as the reason for the decline.

For the month of September, an 11-percent decline was recorded with sales reaching 1,612 from 1,818 units a year ago. Sales of passenger cars dipped 13 percent to 976 units from 1,124 while the decrease in the light commercial vehicle segment (LCV) was eight percent to 636 from 694 units.

On the plus side, there was a slight increase in passenger car sales by one percent to 7,217 units from 7,153 units. This performance was driven by marked sales of Accent, Elantra and Sonata.

As of September, sales of Accent grew by close to one percent and accounted for 48-percent share of passenger car sales and 23 percent of total sales. The Elantra demonstrated strong market uptake with 1,578 units sold or an average of 316 units a month from the time it was introduced in April of this year. This represents 22-percent share of passenger car sales and 11 percent of total sales.

“With the increasing market demand for Sonata and our new models, Accent and Elantra, Hyundai is strongly positioned to keep our growth in the passenger car segment while we continue to shore up competitiveness of our dealerships and maintain our optimism on our full sales performance with expectations of reduced uncertainty from a stable economy, better supply situation, and improved consumer outlook with the onset of the holiday season,” Maria Fe Perez-Agudo, president and CEO, of HARI said.