The midsize Optima sedan has been a transformational product for the Kia brand.
After setting a blistering pace during the past three years, Kia Motors America expects sales to continue climbing well past 500,000 units in 2012 even though it will not be launching any new products for the first time in recent years.
Kia sales increased 36% last year to 485,000 units in the US as its rebuilt product line and its clever and aggressive advertising — featuring dancing hamsters and stars from the National Basketball Association — helped draw new customers into U.S. showrooms. Overall, sales of new light-duty vehicles increased 8% in 2011, so Kia gained market share as well as volume.
“You have to remember we were capacity constrained last year,” said Michael Sprague, Kia vice president of marketing and public relations.“ Between November of 2008 and November of 2011, Kia sales grew 78% as it rolled out the Kia Soul, Kia Optima and Kia Sorento.
Kia is finishing up spending $100 million to expand the company’s new assembly plant in West Point, Georgia. While the production from that plant is shared with its bigger sibling Hyundai, the West Point assembly line can now build more than 360,000 vehicles annually providing Kia with more midsized Optima sedans to sell in the US, said Sprague, who declined to give a specific forecast.
“However, at 485,000 units last year, I think we can go well past 500,000 units,” he forecast.
“We also ran out of the Rio about mid-year,” he said. With a new version of the subcompact Rio now rolling off the assembly line in South Korea, the availability in the U.S. of the new model will grow starting in March.
Kia also has steadily increased its advertising budget to help fuel the growth in sales. With Kia competing in the intensely competitive subcompact, compact, mid-size and small utility segments its advertising budget will increase again in 2012. Kia is now a major and official sponsor of the National Basketball Association and Ladies Professional Golf Association, Sprague added.
The association with the NBA has helped build Kia’s credibility with consumers, the executive contended. People will say, “Well if the NBA endorse it, it must be a pretty good product,” Sprague said. In addition, Kia is planning to air a spot on the Super Bowl in February, which annually is the most-watched sporting event in America.