South Korea’s leading automakers Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. saw steady sales growth in Europe last month despite the region’s contracted demand in the midst of the financial crisis, industry data showed Thursday.

Hyundai and Kia, the flagship companies of Hyundai Motor Group, sold a combined 73,000 units in September in 27 European countries, up 3.7 percent from a year ago, according to the data.

Their market share rose 0.9 percentage points to 6.6 percent last month.

For the first nine months of the year, sales of the two South Korean carmakers jumped 13.8 percent on-year to 568,000 vehicles, closely tailing the No. 7 BMW AG by 11,000 units, said the data.

Hyundai and Kia rose to the 8th place last year with 692,500 units sold, outselling Daimler AG and Toyota Motor Corp.

The brisk sales were led by their popular models like Hyundai’s i40 and new i30, and Kia’s new Pride and new Cee’d.

Sales at the European car market tumbled 10.8 percent on-year in September, with 1.1 million units sold. Its January-September sales also shrank 7.6 percent on-year to 9.37 million vehicles, led by Volkswagen AG, according to the data. (Yonhap News)