(February 9, 2012) The United States was not the only region that got Kia off to a strong start for 2012. Kia has just released UK sales results for January showing that it out-performed the UK car market with registrations up 38 per cent compared to 2011. The total UK car market was up by only 0.03 per cent.

In the U.S., Kia's January sales were up 27.8 percent over January 2011.

Kia vehicles found 4,282 new homes in January in the United Kingdom with both the retail and fleet markets up significantly — retail sales rose 33.6 per cent (to 2,010 units) while fleet sales rose 42.4 per cent (to 2,272 units).  Market share in January was 3.32 per cent — up from 2.41 per cent in 2011.

Commenting on the results, Michael Cole, Managing Director, Kia Motors (UK) Limited said: “It’s a great start to the year for us and it builds upon a solid performance last year.  All-new Picanto and all-new Rio have proved popular with customers since coming to us during the second-half of 2011 and Sportage is continuing to do very well with both retail and fleet customers alike.

“With the recent launch of the Optima, we have brought all-new A-, B- and D-segment cars to the UK market in under eight months.  With all-new cee’d, our C-segment family car, set to be unveiled at the forthcoming Geneva Motor Show we’re predicting that 2012 will be Kia’s best ever year in the UK.”