Kia versus Hyundai: Battle between Australia’s top-selling budget brands spills onto showroom floors

South Korean siblings Kia and Hyundai are in a family fight that is about to spill onto showroom floors across Australia.

The battle could deliver customers a better deal in the coming months as each brand scrambles for every sale in the race to the finish line at the end of the year.

Kia and Hyundai are the closest they have ever been on the new-car sales charts in Australia.

A decade ago, Kia represented about a third of Hyundai’s local sales tally.

Today, Kia leads Hyundai in the year-to-date sales race – as it has done all year – and last month ranked second outright behind Toyota for the third time this year.

Kia has beaten Hyundai in all but two months in 2022 – but has been in front at the end of every month in the year-to-date tally.

Never before has Kia so consistently outsold Hyundai in Australia.

The boss of Kia Australia – Damien Meredith, who has overseen the record growth of the brand during his eight-year tenure – rejects the suggestion Kia has gained ground at the expense of Hyundai.

However, historical data shows Kia sales have accelerated as Hyundai sales have hit the brakes over the past eight years.

Industry observers attribute at least part of Hyundai’s decline to Kia’s sales success.

The rise of Chinese brand MG – which in a stroke of genius hired Hyundai’s former head of sales two years ago – has also eaten into Hyundai’s slice of the value segments in the new-car market.

Other than the sales slowdown in the first year of the pandemic, Hyundai’s September year-to-date result is its lowest since the Global Financial Crisis in 2009.

Hyundai also ranked sixth on the sales charts in September 2022 after bouncing between third and fifth place for most of this year.

Although Kia and Hyundai are jointly owned, the competition between the two brands is fierce. Drive has been told Hyundai Australia executives are not entirely thrilled by being outgunned by younger sibling Kia.

Both companies are now trying to spin the sales upset as being great for the Hyundai-Kia corporation – even though both brands have opposing sales and marketing divisions, and operate out of separate offices in Australia.

When sales of Kia and Hyundai cars are combined they comfortably outsell longtime second-placed Mazda in Australia – but the official scoreboard doesn’t view it that way, and they will continue to be counted separately.

Representatives for Kia and Hyundai say they are struggling with stock shortages, as with the rest of the car industry.

Against the odds, both brands are posting sales gains compared to the same time last year – however Kia last month increased its lead over Hyundai.

Kia sales are up 12.9 per cent year-to-date to the end of September 2022 (compared to the same period last year), while Hyundai is up 7.3 per cent over the same period – in a new-car market that is down 0.6 per cent.

As previously reported, Hyundai and Kia cars share jointly-developed cars, engines, and technology – but the vehicles have unique styling and are built in separate factories.

Both brands arrived in Australia via independent distributors – initially with a limited range of cars, with Hyundai from 1986 and Kia from 1992 – but their local operations are now subsidiaries of their parent companies in South Korea.

Source: Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (bold denotes a sales win for that period).