Hyundai has sold five million vehicles in Europe since the first Hyundai Pony was imported in 1977 reaching a major milestone as sales momentum increases steadily.
The last one million sales has been achieved in just three years. For 27 consecutive months up to March, Hyundai outperformed the market sales trend in Europe.
It took until 1996 before Hyundai recorded its first million sales in Europe, and the two millionth car was sold in 2001. With increasing awareness among European consumers of the Korean firm and an expanding network of retailers covering a greater geographical area, Hyundai was able to hit the three million mark by 2005 and then four million in 2008.
It was in 2007 that the company’s progress moved into a higher gear, when the introduction of the i30 marked a significant moment for Hyundai in Europe. The i30 was not only the first Hyundai designed and engineered to appeal specifically to the tastes of European consumers, it was also the first of the company’s products to carry the ‘i’ prefix, establishing a system of nomenclature that continues today.
The i30 is a truly European car, built at Hyundai’s first manufacturing facility in Europe. The plant in Nošovice, Czech Republic, was opened with the objective of delivering the highest quality standards, which helped to pitch i30 at the heart of the competitive European C-segment.
The i30 was soon followed by new models such as i10 and i20, as well as an increasingly diverse range of models that includes the ix20 compact MPV and ix35 SUV – all of which have Europe-focused styling, power trains and packaging. The arrival of these game-changing cars contributed to Hyundai increasing market share in Europe to a record 2,6 per cent in 2010 and moving total sales up to five million since imports began.
Hyundai continues to invest heavily to meet the expectations of European car buyers. Output from the manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic increases this year to 300,000 units, while the European research and development centre in Germany leads the company’s work on low-emissions diesel technologies and has produced class-leading results for models including ix20, ix35 and the all-new i40.
Established in 1967, Hyundai Motor Company has grown into the Hyundai Motor Group which has ranked the world’s fifth-largest automaker since 2007 and includes more than two dozen auto-related subsidiaries and affiliates. Hyundai Motor, which has six manufacturing bases outside of South Korea, sold approximately 3.6 million vehicles globally in 2010.