Hyundai Enjoys Record Sales in the UK

With five weeks still to go in the year, Hyundai has already managed to sell more cars than in 2009. The company has managed to keep its sales momentum, despite the end of government scheme. Total sales figures for the UK market are expected to be 62,000 by the end of 2010, an increase of almost 9 percent over the previous year.

To date, Hyundai sales for 2010 stand at 57,391, with last year’s record being 56,927. What’s impressive is the fact that this growth in sales has been driven by non scrappage scheme customers, with 80 percent of the cars going to regular buyers.

Sales figures were helped by the popular i10 city car, of which 22,208 found new owners, followed by the i30 with 14,302 and the i20 with 12,113.

“Whilst 2009 was a great year for Hyundai in the UK, 2010 is even better. Scrapping gave the franchise a boost and catapulted it into people's awareness. 2010 proves that we are here to stay,” according to Tony Whitehorn, Hyundai’s managing director in the UK. “Considering that last year Hyundai enjoyed nine months of scrapping and this year only three months, this is an outstanding result.”

The Korean company benefited greatly from the scheme, which lasted for nine months in 2009 but only three in 2010. Customers that would not consider changing their cars found it easier to swap their old ones for more efficient models with better emissions.

Scrappage introduced our cars to a number of customers who previously had not considered them, and they were surprised by the style, quality and equipment levels. The customers have been our best advocates,” added Whitehorn.