In the worst case scenario, we can talk about the complete shutdown of the Russian company and the cessation of sales of Kia and Hyundai, Bloomberg writes, citing the company’s executive director Wu-Jung Zhu.
We will consider the possibility of doing business only for after-sales service, because now we basically don’t have the ability to supply cars (to Russia),” said Wu-Jong Zhu.
In addition to imports and a dealer network, Kia’s assets in the Russian Federation include the XMMR plant in St. Petersburg, which is operated by a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co., but has been shut down since early spring. Woo-Jong Zhu declined to comment on the possible sale of HMMR.
The publication cites statistics from Samsung Securities Co: in 2021 Kia was the most popular car brand in Russia after Lada, with a share of about 12%; third with 11% was Hyundai. And Kia’s Russian sales in the same year amounted to 6% of the brand’s global sales.