Down Market Equals New Records for Second-Tier Asian Automakers
August 07, 2008

By Bill Visnic

The U.S. market is headed away from large pickups and SUVs, turning a trend towards largeness that lasted well more than a decade. The new course is taking consumers straight into the arms of the so-called "second tier" Asian automakers selling in the U.S. - Japan's Subaru and Suzuki and South Korea's Hyundai and Kia.

The now well-documented - and still ongoing - shift in U.S. consumer taste is beginning to show tangible benefits for these automakers, whose product ranges remain dominated by compact cars and crossovers now in strong demand.

In June, Subaru, Suzuki, Hyundai and Kia all achieved record U.S. market share, according to data from Edmunds.com. In most cases, the bulk of each company's rapid market-share gains have come in the last year, in lockstep with record hikes in gasoline prices:

• Of the four, Hyundai by far has the largest U.S. footprint, and in June it posted a record market share of 4.22 percent on sales of 50,033. It was the first time in the company's history it exceeded 4 percent of the market. And it displays Hyundai's upward movement as consumers seek to downsize: although monthly figures fluctuate, Hyundai's record June represented a market-share increase of more than 1.5 points just since last September.

• In June, Kia achieved a new record market share of 2.39 percent, but last month once again broke that mark, gaining 2.48 percent of the U.S. market in July.

• Subaru's new record market share in June amounted to 1.52 percent on sales of 18,007. The closest Subaru has come to that record was 1.47 percent of the U.S. market in October 2005, according to Edmunds data.

• Also in June, Suzuki achieved record market share, earning 0.83 percent of the U.S. light-vehicle market. The number represents a more than 50 percent gain in share just since last December, when Suzuki's market share was 0.53 percent.

Each of these second-tier Asian automakers suffered in the 1990s and the early parts of this decade as, dictated by their size and limited resources, they watched their larger Asian rivals - Japan's Toyota, Nissan and even Honda, expand their product ranges to become "full-line" automakers offering, with a few exceptions, the fullsize pickups and SUVs American buyers craved.

Hyundai and Kia are part of the massive multinational Hyundai Group (which owns 39 percent of Kia), but the company's automaking operations effectively remain small potatoes in terms of the U.S. Mazda Motor Corp. is linked with Ford. Subaru has growing links with Toyota. Suzuki no longer has a direct tie with a larger automaker, though it once had ties with General Motors. 

Edmunds analysts are quick to point out that the market-share records of these companies come as the overall U.S. market is contracting to an annual sales total that likely will be the lowest since the early 1990s. So in the case of Kia, Subaru and Suzuki, the monthly record market share has not translated to record single-month volume.

For Hyundai, however, Edmunds data show its 50,003 units sold in June was the first time the company has ever exceeded 50,000 sales in the U.S. for a single month.

PHOTOS:

1. Hyundai Genesis, the company's all-new flagship sedan and latest symbol of its expansion into new market segments that have increased its U.S. share to record levels.

2. Subaru Forester.

Posted by Bill Visnic at 10:04 PM under Analysis , Business , Companies , Featured , News | Comments (4) | digg this | Seed Newsvine

Technorati Tags: edmundscom, gasprices, hyundai, kia, marketshare, subaru, suzuki