Business is booming for South Korea’s Hyundai Group that reported its first quarter results. The Hyundai brand sold an impressive 1,072,679 new vehicles worldwide (domestic: 154,800 / overseas: 917,879) in the first three months of 2012, up 16.7 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Hyundai Motor’s net income climbed 30.6 percent to 2.45 trillion won (US$2.16 billion) in the first quarter, while its operating profit jumped 24.9 percent to 2.28 trillion won (US$2 billion).
The company’s second brand, Kia, saw its global sales rise 12.6 percent to 636,398 vehicles in the first quarter of 2012. In the same period, Kia’s net income rose 26 percent to 1.2 trillion won (US$1.1 billion), while the automaker’s operating profits jumped 33 percent to 1.121 trillion won(US$990 million).
In comparison, the VW Group as a whole recorded a sale increase of 11.3 percent to 2.3 million vehicles in the first three months of the year, with the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand delivering 1.2 million vehicles (+9.3%) globally.
Hyundai has said that it expects global sales to rise 5.7 percent to 4.3 million units in 2012, reaching 7 million when combined with those of the Kia brand.
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