It Pays To Be A Hyundai Dealer

It Pays To Be A Hyundai Dealer

After having its Genesis luxury vehicle named Car of the Year by a number of enthusiast magazines earlier this year, Korean automaker Hyundai scored another success this week as J.D. Power & Associates announced it as the winner of its Launch Award, a measure of how successfully a new model is brought to market. Labeling the effort as near flawless, J.D. Power said the Genesis launch scored 689 out of 1,000 possible points, meaning it pretty much met every expectation for projected sales level, price point, residual value, marketing support and most important, retained dealer margin.

Meanwhile, Hyundai reported a record quarterly profit this week indicating that its contrarian marketing approach, to expand when everyone else is contracting, has paid off. Hyundai said its net income for the quarter from April to June soared 48 percent from the year previous to $650 million.

In the U.S., its unusual marketing schemes of offering buyer assurance in case of a job loss, guaranteed fuel prices at $1.49 per gallon and advances for clunkers, has led to a market share increase from 3.1 percent to 4.3 percent and in partnership with its affiliate Kia, a rise to 7.3 percent from 5 percent.

Announcing the results in Seoul, South Korea, Chung Tae-hwan, Hyundais CFO said the company expected worldwide sales to increase to 3 million even as the U.S. market drops to 9.7 million units as a whole. For Hyundai better times await, he said; Sweet music to its franchise holders.