Kia’s May sales fall 2.1 pct on slowing demand

Kia Corp., South Korea's second-largest automaker by sales, said Monday its sales fell 2.1 percent last month from a year earlier. Kia, a smaller affiliate of Hyundai Motor Co., sold 264,313 vehicles in May, down from 270,009 units a year ago, due mainly to lower domestic demand for its models, the company said in a statement. To prop up sales, the company will focus on enhancing its product mix by launching the EV3 all-electric model in the domestic market later this year and beginning to ship the Carnival minivan gasoline hybrid model, it said. Domestic sales declined 8.3 percent on-year to 46,110 units last month from 50,275, while overseas sales were down 0.6 percent to 217,819 from 219,186 during the cited period, it said. The monthly sales figures include special-purpose vehicle sales results. From January to May, sales fell 0.9 percent to 1,286,111 autos from 1,297,657 units in the same period of last year. Domestic sales declined 4.1 percent to 231,237 in the first five months from 241,101, whi le overseas sales were down 0.1 percent to 1,053,290 from 1,054,429 during the mentioned period. Source: Yonhap News Agency