Hyundai make it in to UK Top Ten best-selling car makers

Hyundai has become the first Korean car maker to make it in to the top ten best selling car makers in the UK, with sales of 74,000 in 2012.

It’s taken a few years to shake off the ‘Cheap Car’ tag, but Hyundai are now offering a range of cars – certainly in the mainstream – that can be compared on ability, design and quality with the best of the competition.

That quantum change in perception in the last few years about the desirability of a Hyundai has now translated in to Hyundai becoming one of the top ten best-selling car brands in the UK, a first for a Korean car maker and a real sign that Hyundai is now accepted as a real competitor – not a ‘Budget’ brand.

Top sellers in the UK in 2012 for Hyundai were the i10 with 23,000 sales (more than the KA managed), the new i30 with 12,000 sales and the i20 with  11,000 sales, with the rest of the Hyundai range – ix35, Veloster, i40 – performing well too.

Despite the huge rise in the last few years in sales for Hyundai in the UK, Hyundai are not forecasting a big increase in sales for 2013, but will instead be concentrating on brand building and making the whole Hyundai ‘Experience’ as good as it can be in a concerted effort to ensure they keep the big chunk of customers that have defected from other brands to Hyundai in the last few years – including mainstream brands – a bunch of happy bunnies.

So it won’t be until 2014 before we start to see Hyundai pushing their sales onwards again in a big way with new models like the new i10 (although 2013 will see stuff like a mild facelift for the ix35) and, we hope, a push in to sportier territory and (perhaps) the arrival of the new Hyundai Genesis (previewed this week as the HCD-14 Concept) to start nibbling away at premium car makers’ high-end cars in the UK too.