Hyundai local sales up 9.2% in December

CEBU, Philippines - With the global financial crisis that hit most industries since 2008 and lingered on until late last year, companies from different sectors reported of large losses in sales and shifted to strategies in order to cope with the wavering economy.

However, some companies, even with operations in countries that were hard hit by the turmoil, still shared that it was a good year for them.

One of these companies is Hyundai Motors, who posted high sales in 2009, even after reports that the automotive industry was of those that was badly hit by the economic downturn.

Hyundai Motors, South Korea 's largest automaker, shared that results for its domestic and overseas sales in December 2009 and the whole year in general had one of the best results for the company.

“For the first time in the automaker's history, the 2009 global sales have surpassed three million units,” according to a year-end statement of Hyundai.

It stated that domestic sales of the company were up by 82.2 percent on a year-on-year basis.

Increase in sales in December showed a 9.2 percent boost with 75,709 units in sold compared to 69,356 units in the previous month.

According to Hyundai, the high performance “can be attributed to increased demand caused by the Korean government’s tax benefits that ended in December.”

Aside from domestic sales, overseas sales also showed good numbers with a 23.4 percent increase on a year-on-year.

For the whole year, domestic sales were up by 23.1 percent, which was credited to the introduction of new models by the company.

This was also seen as the Korean government offered tax benefits starting May of 2009 to consumers who would exchange their vehicles that are older than 10 years for new ones.

Overseas Sales for the whole year posted an 8.7 increase with the help of strong sales from Hyundai’s overseas plants in China , India and the Czech Republic . These overseas plants showed an increase of 34.2%.

Hyundai Motor Co., which has developed into the Hyundai Automotive Group, was ranked as the world’s fifth-largest automaker since 2007 and has been offering their services and products all over from North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East or specifically in 193 countries through 6,000 dealerships and showrooms.— AJ de la Torre