Kia expands dealership network in PH

South Korean automotive company Kia has unveiled a new dealership in the Philippines, expanding the number of its branches in the country to more than 40.

The car company’s local unit, Kia Philippines, said that the Kia Acropolis in Libis, Quezon City is its latest dealership in the country as well as the seventh one to adopt its new brand look and feel.

Kia Philippines said their newest dealership will offer “next-level service” thanks to its convenient location and comfortable facilities.

The Kia Acropolis dealership is under local distributor Autoklassik Motors Corp., a Filipino-owned corporation that was established on August 10, 2010.

Kia Philippines’s latest expansion comes at the heels of a good year for the car company, which has since bounced back from the ills of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The industry is back to prepandemic levels in terms of overall sales,” Kia Philippines president Manny Aligada said in a statement.

“Everyone was hungry to go back into the business and to ride their new cars, so Kia has been riding that crest,” he added.

The Kia executive said that sales grew by 76 percent in 2021 and by 34 percent in 2022.

Although a bit lower than the previous year, Aligada said the 2022 figure outpaces the industry growth rate in the same year.

According to a joint report from the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (CAMPI) and the Truck Manufacturers Association (TMA), local car companies sold 352,596 vehicle units in 2022.

This is equivalent to a 31.3-percent increase compared to the previous year.

Local automobile firms sold 223,793 units in 2020 and 268,488 units in 2021.

For more than a decade before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, motor vehicle sales in the Philippines have been growing steadily at a rate of around 20 to 30 percent a year.