Hyundai holds 4th place in Brazil‘s subcompact car market

SAO PAULO, March 17 -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea‘s largest automaker, has maintained fourth place in subcompact passenger car sales in Brazil during the first two and half months of this year, the company said Sunday.

Hyundai Motor, the world’s fifth largest automaker, has sold 6,124 units of the HB20 in the first half of March, a Hyundai spokesman said.

The South Korean carmaker sold 10,179 units of the HB20 in Brazil in February alone, emerging as the fourth biggest seller in the subcompact passenger car market.

The HB20‘s sales have surged greatly over the past months since Hyundai introduced the subcompact passenger car in the Latin American country in October last year.

Hyundai sold 3,321 units of the HB20 in October, 8,077 units in November, 10,665 in December and 10,179 in February. Volkswagen’s Gol was the most popular subcompact passenger car in Brazil with the sales of 9,290 units during the first half of this month, followed by Fiat‘s Uno with 6,653 units and Fiat’s Palio with 6,502.

Ford‘s Fiesta came fifth with 4,461, Volkswagen’s Fox sixth with 4,426 and GM‘s Onix seventh with 4,391. Hyundai recently began rolling out the sport utility vehicle HB20X and a new subcompact passenger car HB20S from its Brazil factory with the aim of selling more than 150,000 units of the three models in Brazil this year.

Hyundai Motor sold 14,617 vehicles in the Brazilian market last month for a market share of 6.6 percent, the fifth after Fiat’s 49,498 units, Volkswagen‘s 43,735, General Motors’ 39,134 and Ford‘s 19,725. (Yonhap News)