Hyundai Spain Sales Up Fifth Straight Year in 2016

MADRID – Hyundai Spain reports a fifth straight year of improved sales, delivering nearly 51,000 vehicles for a 15.3% year-on-year increase.

But the numbers don’t sit quite right with Polo Satrustegui, general manager of Hyundai Spain. He believes the 70% share of sales to private consumers, with less-profitable rental fleets and governments buying the rest, poses a risk to the automaker if the government does not revive its defunct cash-for-clunkers subsidy program meant to spur new-car sales and get older, dirtier vehicles off the road.

Satrustegui forecasts 55,000 sales and a 5.5% market share for 2017, but deliveries and share could range as high as 58,000 and 8%, respectively, if the government does not meet dealers’ demands and OK a new version of the program that expired July 31.

Hyundai Spain closed 2016 with a 2.3% profit, down from 2.8% a year earlier. “It was a consequence of the investments performed to modernize the dealer network,” Satrustegui says.

The executive predicts the automaker will raise the number of showrooms in Spain from 145 to 170, and he expects to close the current year with 83 dealerships.

The Tucson CUV saw sales jump 50% to become Hyundai Spain’s top seller and fourth-best selling model in the country in 2016. In Europe Hyundai deliveries totaled 492,218 vehicles last year, up 7.7% from prior-year and 69% higher than in the worldwide financial crisis year of 2008. 

Hyundai’s goal target is to become Europe’s top-selling Asian brand by 2021, “a target that we hope to reach in Spain even one year before,” Satrustegui says.