Kia Corp., South Korea's second-largest automaker, said Friday its sales fell 5.7 percent last month from a year earlier as the global chip shortage continued to affect its production.

Kia sold 212,819 vehicles in January, down from 225,733 units a year ago, the company said in a statement.

Domestic sales declined 11 percent on-year to 37,038 units last month from 41,481, while exports were down 4.6 percent to 175,781 from 184,252 during the cited period, it said. 

Continued chip shortages and the spreading coronavirus variants had an impact on its vehicle sales last month, Kia said, adding it will adjust the production schedules to minimize the impact of part shortages on its production.

"Kia's vehicle production began to improve in September, and the company will adopt a three-shift system in its Indian plant and launch new models in the first quarter to boost sales," the statement said.   

For all of 2021, sales rose 6.5 percent to 2.78 million autos from 2.61 million units in 2020. (Yonhap)