Hyundai working 24/7
June 5th, 2009 by Richard Aucock
HYUNDAI has won record-breaking market share in May, with ‘unprecedented’ levels of demand.
So many customers want to buy new models from Hyundai car dealers, the import centre has imposed 24-hour working!
This comes as orders at Hyundai car dealers rocketed a staggering 750 percent over target.
That is not a typo: 750%!
May’s sales saw Hyundai push ahead of established brands such as Fiat, Mazda and Renault in the UK car sales stakes.
Incredibly, though, it could have been even better.
‘It has certainly been an amazing month for us,’ said UK MD Tony Whitehorn, ‘but we could have sold even more cars if we could have got them.’
Thus, ‘our import centre at Tilbury is working flat-out for 24 hours a day, to make sure the cars get out to dealers as soon as possible.’
Whitehorn put the sales figures into context. ‘Our dealers have taken more than 9000 orders in the past four weeks – that’s almost a third of the total number of cars we sold in all of 2008…’
Sales rose by nearly 37 percent, to a total of 3325 for the Month. This officially makes Hyundai the fastest-growing major car brand in the UK.
Indeed, focus on the profitable retail customers, and Hyundai actually boasts a 3.82 percent UK market share – good enough for 11th place, and ahead of big brands such as BMW and Citroen.
Like Chevrolet, though, scrappage was a vital component, but not the only reason for Hyundai’s growth; there was also a rise in non-scrappage customers.
There was also some amusing news. Cars scrapped for the micro-sized Hyundai i10 include a Range Rover, Mercedes S 500, and ‘several Jaguars’…
Scrap clarified for car dealers