Hyundai Motor's 3rd-quarter net profit surges to record high amid jump in sales

[tidus1203]

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest automaker and a growing force in the global industry, said third-quarter net profit more than tripled to a record high amid sharply higher sales.

Hyundai Motor said in a regulatory filing Thursday that it earned 979.2 billion won ($827.3 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30. It posted net profit of 264.8 billion won a year earlier.
Hyundai spokesman Ki Jin-ho said the figure was an all-time quarterly high. It exceeded the previous record of 811.85 billion won set during the second quarter of this year.
The Ulsan, South Korea-based maker of the Elantra and Sonata sedans and the luxury Genesis said sales during the quarter rose 33.8 percent to 8.1 trillion won from 6.1 trillion won a year earlier.
The automaker's global auto sales in the third quarter surged 41 percent to 824,181 vehicles from the year before. For the first nine months of 2009, sales rose 7.5 percent 2.23 million.
The company said it took 5.5 percent of global market share in the third quarter, up from 4.4 percent in the same period last year and 5.2 percent in the second quarter of 2009.
Hyundai, which along with affiliate Kia Motors Corp. forms the world's fifth-largest automotive group, has seen its market share grow worldwide in recent years through an emphasis on quality and design.
Creative marketing has also helped Hyundai gain attention. Responding to the global economic crisis, it implemented a program that allows customers in the United States and some other countries who lose their job to return their vehicle for a refund.
Hyundai has also benefited amid the global slump from weakness in the South Korean won, which has made it products more competitive in overseas markets.
The won's weakness against the dollar has come as the Japanese yen has surged against the greenback, hitting the bottom line of automakers including Toyota Motor Corp. -- a key Hyundai rival.
The South Korean won declined 14 percent on average in the third quarter this year against the dollar compared with the same period last year.
The won has been rising recently, however, causing worries in South Korea about the possible impact that may have on major exporters such as Hyundai, Kia and Samsung Electronics Co.
Both Hyundai and Kia have expanded aggressively overseas. Hyundai has factories in China, India, Turkey, the United States and the Czech Republic.
Shares in Hyundai, which released earnings about two hours before the stock market closed, fell 0.5 percent to finish at 103,000 won. Hyundai shares have surged 161 percent so far this year.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Hyunda...&asset=&ccode=

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http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/20/news...ion=2009102011

Hyundai: The newest U.S. auto power
South Korea's Hyundai Motor is now a force to be reckoned with in the battered U.S. auto market as more consumers flock to its Hyundai and Kia brands.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: October 20, 2009: 11:07 AM ET


The Hyundai Genesis is the automaker's first entry into the luxury market.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a year of unprecedented turmoil for the U.S. auto industry, one major car maker has emerged as a winner. And that company isn't based in Detroit, Japan or Europe.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group has gained significant ground against its more established rivals this year. In fact, the company, which has separate operations for its Hyundai and Kia brands in the U.S., is the only one to report sales growth this year.

U.S. sales for General Motors, Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Chrysler Group, as well as Japan's Toyota Motor (TM), Honda Motor (HMC) and Nissan (NSANY), are all down between 25% to 50% from a year ago. But combined U.S. sales for the Hyundai and Kia brands are up 2.6%.

As a result, the two brands have picked up 2.2 percentage points of market share during the first nine months of 2009. Hyundai and Kia now combine for 7.4% of the U.S. auto market.

That puts Hyundai Motor Group just ahead of Nissan as the sixth-largest automaker in terms of U.S. auto sales. And the Korean automaker is rapidly closing in on Chrysler, which now has just a 9.2% share of the U.S. market.

"They're definitely considered one of the major automakers today, which was definitely not the case this time last year," said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends for car pricing tracker TrueCar.com.

So how has Hyundai become such a significant threat to Detroit's Big Three and the Japanese auto giants?

The right cars at the right time

Industry experts said that Hyundai has primarily been a beneficiary of the economic downturn.

High gas prices steered buyers away from the pickups and SUVs that had been a mainstay for Detroit's Big Three to more fuel efficient cars that are Hyundai's specialty. That trend accelerated thanks to this summer's popular Cash for Clunkers program, which gave buyers money to buy a new car if they traded in their old gas guzzler.

Hyundai's and Kia's combined U.S. sales leapt 30% over the course of July and August compared to a year earlier. The rest of the industry suffered a 7% decline in sales over those two months -- despite a boost from Cash for Clunkers.

The company also has been able to steal share because its vehicles typically cost less than similar models from rivals. Lower-priced vehicles obviously appealed to buyers squeezed on credit or worried about their jobs.

That has helped Hyundai steal share not just from its troubled Detroit rivals, but also from Toyota and Honda -- despite these Japanese automakers' similar focus on smaller cars.

"Fundamentally the market has come to them," said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive officer of auto industry tracker Edmunds.com.

But now that Cash for Clunkers is history and many economists are talking about an end to the recession, will Hyundai continue to gain ground? Company officials said that it will be a challenge but expressed confidence.

"We've done a great job of lifting our brand this year. We're on lists we weren't on before," said Dave Zuchowski, vice president of U.S. sales for Hyundai. "But we're going to keep our foot on the gas. We have a lot of work to do."

Zuchowski admits that Hyundai uniquely benefited from the economic downturn and the hit that the rest of the auto industry took. He compared it to the effect that the oil shocks of the 1970s and early 1980s had on helping the Japanese automakers to establish themselves with U.S. buyers.

But Hyundai also made some savvy moves to take advantage of the trends moving the market in its direction.

Increased production and more advertising = higher sales

In January, the company rolled out its Hyundai Assurance program, which allowed buyers who lost their jobs to return their cars without penalty. A month later, Hyundai added a new wrinkle to the program. The company agreed to cover three months of payments for buyers that were looking for work.

The program helped drive up awareness of the Hyundai brand. GM and Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) eventually came out with their own version in response to Hyundai's success.

Hyundai also did a better job than most of its rivals of preparing for demand from Cash for Clunkers. In the spring, as many U.S. auto plants were idled due to weak sales, Hyundai raised production at its U.S. plants from four days to five to give it adequate supplies in anticipation of the program.

The company also guaranteed its dealers they would get the up to $4,500 payments per car sold under Cash for Clunkers directly from Hyundai, rather than having them wait for reimbursement from the government.

That turned out to be a smart move. Dealers for many of Hyundai's competitors ran into a cash crunch due to slow government payments, which limited the ability of some rivals to fully reap the benefits of the program.

Hyundai has also been taking advantage of the troubles facing General Motors and Chrysler. The company has grabbed dozens of U.S. dealerships or facilities cut loose by GM and Chrysler as part of their bankruptcies.

Experts say that Hyundai may also get a lift as GM drops its Pontiac and Saturn brands in the coming months. According to research from Edmunds.com, people who've bought Pontiac or Saturn models in the past have also looked at Hyundai models before making their purchase.

Hyundai has stepped up its marketing efforts as well -- and at a time when many competitors were pulling back on how much they spend on promotions.

The company advertised during the Super Bowl for the first time ever in 2008 and did so again this year. The company also had a commercial during this year's Academy Awards. Zuchowski said Hyundai is looking for more high-profile sponsorship opportunities going forward.

What's next?

Experts almost universally praise Hyundai for the success of its fuel-efficient Hyundai and Kia vehicles.

But even as many American consumers continue to shift to smaller cars, experts say that Hyundai has the opportunity to grab even more market share if it sold more trucks.

Light trucks still account for nearly half of U.S. auto sales. Hyundai has limited crossover and minivan offerings and has less than a 5% share of the light truck market.

There have been rumors that Hyundai is planning to introduce a pickup offering in the future. Zuchowski would only say there are no immediate plans for such a truck.

The company also has only one luxury vehicle, the Hyundai Genesis. By way of comparison, most other automakers have a full lineup of cars marketed under separate luxury brands.

Some experts say that Hyundai may need to come out with its own separate luxury brand if it is going to compete effectively in that higher-profit part of the market.

"Luxury buyers buy image, and the image of Hyundai is not on the short list for most luxury buyers," said Toprak. "You're going to have a tough time selling a $50,000 Hyundai, even if the car is worth that kind of money."

Still, experts say that Hyundai and Kia have a solid group of new cars ready to hit the market in the next few years, such as the redesigned versions of Hyundai's Santa Fe crossover and Sonata sedan and Kia's new Soul and Forte small cars.

"The early signals from their product pipeline is they should be very competitive," said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting for J.D. Power & Associates.

Schuster added that as long as the company continues to do what it has been doing, Hyundai should be able to keep gaining market share. And that could mean that the once little South Korean car company may become an even bigger thorn in the side of both Detroit and Japan.

[kihtmaine]

Hyundai is promising..

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Hyundai Motor Co.'s second-quarter profit soared 71 percent to a record high on a double-digit jump in global sales.
South Korea's biggest automaker said it earned 1.39 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in the three months ended June 30. It earned 811.9 billion won the same period last year.


The result exceeded Hyundai's previous record profit of 1.13 trillion won in the first quarter of this year and highlights its emergence as a rising force in the global auto industry.


Hyundai Motor and affiliate Kia Motors Corp., which reports its results separately on Friday, form the world's fifth-largest automotive group.
Both have expanded aggressively overseas. Hyundai has factories in China, India, Turkey, the United States and the Czech Republic. Kia has plants in China and Slovakia and began production in the U.S. last year.


Hyundai, maker of the Elantra and Sonata sedans and the luxury Genesis, said sales rose 18.3 percent to 9.56 trillion won from 8.08 trillion won a year earlier.


The Seoul-based company said second-quarter global sales volume rose 19.2 percent to 922,225 vehicles from 773,809 the same time last year.
Hyundai said exports from factories in South Korea rose 40.1 percent, though domestic sales fell 17.8 percent.
Sales by overseas plants rose 25.4 percent to 464,731 vehicles, Hyundai said.


Hyundai did not provide a breakdown for each overseas plant, but separate materials for investors said they helped boost first-half earnings.
Sales revenue in the United States rose 72.3 percent in the first half from a year ago while the number of vehicles sold gained 84.3 percent. In China, sales revenue rose 14.9 percent and volume was up 27.9 percent. Sales revenue in India increased 11.2 percent while volume rose 19.7 percent.
Shares in Hyundai Motor fell 0.7 percent to finish at 144,000 won. The company's share price tripled in 2009.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Hyunda...&asset=&ccode=

[armscor40]

[SIZE=2]Is Hyundai Cheating?
[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]All Will Drive by Vernon Sarne 16 Sep 2010[/SIZE]



I’m a big admirer of what Hyundai has accomplished around the world in general and in our country in particular. I’ve been a courtside witness to how its brand equity has soared in our market since the days when it was still being distributed by Francisco Motors. Today, under the proficient handling of current distributor Hyundai Asia Resources Inc., Hyundai has not only posted amazing sales figures (103-percent year-to-date growth from last year), it has also--perhaps more important--climbed to third place overall, dislodging former powerhouse Honda. In so doing, Hyundai has threatened the strong hold of the Japanese on our car market. I have no doubt both Toyota and Mitsubishi--the only two carmakers Hyundai has yet to overtake here--have been keeping a wary eye on the Korean brand.

I have never thought of this achievement as anything surprising and unexpected. I’m not one to jump on bandwagons. I saw this coming. To prove my point, more than three years ago, in May 2007, I put three Hyundai vehicles (Elantra, Tiburon and Veracruz) on the cover of Top Gear, marking the very first time that a Korean brand made it on our glossy wrapper. (UPDATE: I stand corrected. Our April 2005 issue had the Hyundai Tiburon on the cover. My apologies; I wasn't with the magazine then.) My friends at Hyundai never knew about this, but I had to calculatingly justify to management why I was doing this. To their mind, the time for Korean cars hadn’t arrived yet, and that the sure-fire way to sell copies on the newsstands was still via popular Japanese nameplates. I probably put my job on the line by pushing the idea through.

Fortunately, the issue sold decently well. And Hyundai just went from strength to strength after that. These days, I can honestly tell you that a Hyundai cover for us will sell just as briskly as a Toyota, Mitsubishi or Honda cover. We have concrete numbers to prove this. Come to think of it, our Kia Forte Koup cover also sold well last year. Maybe our market has really warmed up to the Koreans?

Anyway, my point is that I have never found any reason to suspect that there is something irregular about Hyundai’s phenomenal success in our market. Mainly because it is consistent with the brand’s rise in stock around the world and also with our readers’ impassioned reception of its vehicles. Add to this the fact that HARI officers and employees are truly nice people. They’ve always struck me as hard-working and professional--overachieving individuals who will stop at nothing to push their brand to the top.

Yesterday, however, a story in the motoring section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer caught my attention. Titled ‘Breach Of Trust’ and written by our very own Botchi Santos, the piece was essentially a blind item about a certain surging carmaker that allegedly brings in vehicles at extremely undervalued rates. In other words, the company in question is importing cars with unbelievably low declared values. “Bringing in a car valued at $337 as per customs declaration, even before taxes, does sound fishy,” Botchi wrote, quoting from Business Statistics Monitor documents handed to him by an officer of a Japanese carmaker.

Botchi also wrote: “It is not just the $337 car I mentioned. (There’s) a hot-selling compact SUV with a customs-declared value of about P420,000 and (which) retails for about a million and a half pesos...or a hot-selling van with a declared value of $11,652 or P540,000 per unit, retailing at around P2 million.”

Ever the curious guy, I asked around for the identity of said carmaker, and the bottle stopped spinning in Hyundai’s direction. “It’s Hyundai,” my contacts said. Apparently, the vehicles being referred to in the article are the Getz, the Tucson and the Starex. This, they said, is how HARI has been able to price its cars so low.

Of course, that’s only one side of the story. We need to get the other side to arrive at any sort of credibility in this allegation. So I asked the marketing services department of HARI for comments. A succinct “no comment” was all I got. And then, minutes later--perhaps realizing the implication of a no-comment response--the HARI marketing officer said he really couldn’t chime in on the issue since it’s not his territory. It’s for their finance guys to address this, he pointed out.

Fair enough, although I doubt I’d get a call from any HARI finance officer anytime soon. So now, I’m left to grapple with two bothersome thoughts.

First, is any of this true? Could Hyundai really be cheating in our market? Do their cars really come in undervalued to dodge proper taxes? Could this be the reason Hyundai cars are so competitively priced in our country?

Second, is this merely a smear campaign against Hyundai orchestrated by its main rivals--chief of which are the Japanese brands it is currently threatening? Is the entire local auto industry conspiring to somehow “moderate” Hyundai’s unprecedented rise?

If the first case were true, I’d be bitterly disappointed. I’ve rooted for Hyundai all this time and am genuinely happy for its success. But if the latter were the case, this issue will only make the Korean brand stronger--much to the competition’s chagrin. Either way, a shameful Pinoy business trick will come out in the open. Let’s see which is which.




http://www.topgear.com.ph/features/c...undai-cheating

[tidus1203]

Paninira lang yan... I mean ang dami pinapasok ng HARI if ganyan yan kalaki at kadami dapat nahuhuli na sila given the government is hungry for money...

[kulafu]

Paninira lang yan... I mean ang dami pinapasok ng HARI if ganyan yan kalaki at kadami dapat nahuhuli na sila given the government is hungry for money...

hahaha...ayan na, gumagana na ang black propaganda.

[Monseratto]

Will just wait for HARI's answer before forming any conclusion.

[tidus1203]

Will just wait for HARI's answer before forming any conclusion.

But typical corporate answer is to say no comment on rumors and speculation.

[armscor40]

the best that HARI could do right now is to enlighten us on this issue...once and for all!