A few days ago I posted about the rise of Kia in the Australian market this past decade and what Chinese brands seeking to establish themselves here can learn from that experience. Kia Australia's CEO, Damien Meredith, was recently
on the implications of the rise of China for the Australian vehicle market. I have excerpted (and lightly edited for brevity) some sections below:
Local Kia executives also
the implications of importing Kia vehicles to Australia from Chinese production facilities, beginning with the EV5:
So Kia Australia's perspective is that China is coming to rewrite the commercial landscape, but things are still looking up for Kia themselves, in part because they plan to increasingly produce vehicles for export in China. It's an interesting juxtaposition of ideas, but not an unreasonable one. I think the most dubious aspect of Mr. Meredith's comments is the idea that Hyundai and Kia can
both achieve 100k sales/yr going forward. Comparing 2014 and 2023 sales volumes, Kia has picked up an additional 48k sales/yr, but the combined Hyundai-Kia tally has only increased by 23k sales/yr, from 128k to 151k. That is to say, a considerable proportion of Kia's growth this past decade has come at the expense of Hyundai. Probably he just didn't want to get into the Hyundai vs. Kia family feud in this interview.
