Hyundai-Kia Overtakes Toyota, Honda Globally

The Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group is taking the global lead over onetime Asian leader Toyota by overtaking it in South America sales. That leaves the U.S. as the last market in which Toyota maintains a slim lead.

In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela Hyundai-Kia sold 75,792 cars from January to Ma, according to data from Ward’s Auto Sunday. That puts the group in the top spot among Asian carmakers by beating Toyota (67,614), Honda (54,934) and Nissan (45,180).

The trend favoring Hyundai-Kia seems to be accelerating. In May Hyundai-Kia’s S. America sales jumped 24.5 percent over the same month of last year. By contrast sales of Toyota and Honda fell 3.8 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, over the same period.

The Hyundai i30 compact is the best-selling car in the key S. American market of Brazil. The company is also enjoying success with the ix35 SUV (Tucson in the U.S.) and the compact Accent, while Kia is seeing fast growth in sales of the Forte and Pride compacts, Sportage R SUV and New Morning subcompact. Sales are expected to grow even faster once the group begins production in its Brazil plant.

In Europe Hyundai-Kia sold 283,506 cars during the first five months of this year, accounting for a 4.7 percent market share — higher than that enjoyed by not only by Toyota, Nissan and Honda but also by Ford and GM.

In Canada Hyundai-Kia’s sales of 81,304 gave it a 12.6 percent market share — easily the biggest for any Asian brand.

In China Hyundai-Kia enjoys the top spot among Asian carmakers. In India its sales of 157,000 in the first five months makes it the top foreign group with a 17.7 percent market share. In the U.S. market Hyundai is slightly behind Toyota and Honda in total sales from January to May. In May, however, its 10.1 percent share was just 0.1 percentage point behind Toyota and ahead of Hond’s 8.5 percent and Nissan’s 7.2 percent.

The group’s gains can be attributed partly to production delays suffered by Japanese rivals due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. But another factor that is likely to be more important in the long run are the solid gains made by the Hyundai-Kia group in quality and styling, coupled with slippage in the perception of quality ascribed to Toyota following its series of embarrassing recalls throughout 2010.