Chairman Chung Mong-koo of  Hyundai Motor Group.

An array of new car models to be introduced to the auto market in Korea and abroad this year in a bid to achieve the group’s sales target for this year set at 8.2 million units.

(Photos:Hyundai Motor Group)

"As the market moves from bad to worse, carmakers should find a breakout in car sales,” Chairman Chung Mong-koo of the Hyundai Motor Group used to say.

As if to follow that sentiment, the chairman held a first-half of the year meeting for all CEOs of his overseas subsidiaries at the group’s Head Office in Seoul on July 13.

The chairman told the overseas subsidiaries heads to strengthen company sales support systems so that sales fronts can achieve the highest results for Hyundai and Kia’s cars this year.

The meeting for overseas subsidiaries heads is held twice a year, once in July and another in December, to check the performance records of the subsidiaries and the market conditions in their areas of responsibilities, and discuss the production and marketing strategies for the next half year. 

For the first half-year meeting, some 60 top executives attended a gathering led by the chairman and Vice Chairman Chung Ui-sun of Hyundai Motor Group, Vice Chairman Lee Hyung-keun of Kia Motors, Vice President Chung Won-seon of Hyundai Motor Overseas Marketing Headquarters and the heads of 50 overseas subsidiaries of the group.

They met for about three hours with the chairman, stressing that close cooperation among individuals working in different parts of subsidiaries departments to focus on sales.

He said we all know that external conditions are tough, “but we cannot sit just watching the situation. We should work hard to overcome it believing in our minds that we can overcome any tough situation if we set the minds to it. In the process, we will become stronger.”

Under the tough conditions, he said, “we should renew our physical characteristics and our minds to fight them and take them out of the way and in the process, become stronger than before as our bodies and minds are improved and reformed.”

Chung also urged the heads of the subsidiaries to never stop coming up with new ideas and experiments to improve their brands.

Both Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors increased their sales targets this year to 8.2 million cars. Their combined sales for the first time exceeded 8 million units last year.

However, in the first half of this year sales of both Hyundai and Kia came to only 3.9 million cars, down 2.4 percent year-on-year due to a number of reasons, including a low-valued yen and Euro, dull Chinese growth, the sluggish emerging markets and also a sluggish domestic car market in the first half.

Last month, both Hyundai and Kia car sales fell for the first time in two years in China, 30.8 percent and 26.5 percent respectively, while in Korea, the share of Hyundai and Kia cars in the domestic auto market fell to 66.9 percent due to tough marketing by foreign auto makers operating in Korea such as BMW, GM, Ford, Renault and Toyota.

At the meeting, they decided to make up for the loss in sales in the first half with new models of their cars to be introduced in the domestic market in the second half — trying to recoup the loss with existing car models with their traditional marketing strategies.

Hyundai is scheduled to put on the market a number of new models including the Sonata, the Avante and the Equus. Kia is scheduled to introduce the K5 and the Sportage. Hyundai plans to introduce the brand new Tucson abroad in the U.S., China and Europe, as well as a small SUV dubbed Creta in India. It will be called the Central in South America and emerging markets. Kia will introduce the Cee’d, an improved version, along with the K5 in Europe in an attempt to meet the sales target for this year.