Hyundai Group Overtakes Ford in First Half of 2009 and Becomes World's Fourth Largest Automaker

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Company that includes KIA has overtaken the Ford Group in the first half of the year to become the fourth largest carmaker in the world selling 2,153,000 units or 8,000 more vehicles than the US giant in the same period, according to figures published by the Automotive News Data Centre. Only a decade ago, the then newly unified Hyundai and Kia company was in 11th place overall.

The Korean automaker attributed the growth to its decision to create factories in several countries including Slovakia, the United States and China that built products designed and engineered specifically for local markets.

"Results for all of last year saw Hyundai-Kia trail Ford by around 1,000,000-units, but by reducing the impact of the global recession by producing the right product for the right times, the group has managed to take fourth place much quicker than had been predicted," the South Korean automaker said in a prepared statement.

While the economic downturn has taken its toll on all of the top 10 automakers, Toyota managed to hold on to the first place with 3,564,105 units (-26% compared to H1 2008) followed by General Motors that sold 3,552,722 vehicles (-21.8%) and the Volkswagen Group that was the less affected by the slowdown (-5.1%) with 3,100,300 units sold in the first half of the year. Ford slipped to fifth place with 2,145,000 vehicles sold (-30.6 %).

Global Sales – first half of 2009
	Manufacturer	H1 2009	H1 2008	% change
1	Toyota	3,564,105	4,815,442	-26.0
2	General Motors	3,552,722	4,541,125	-21.8
3	Volkswagen	3,100,300	3,265,200	-5.1
4	Hyundai-Kia	2,153,000	-
5	Ford	2,145,000	3,093,000	-30.6
6	PSA Peugeot-Citroen	1,586,900	1,844,700	-14.0
7	Honda	1,586,000	2,022,000	-21.6
8	Nissan	1,545,976	2,013,611	-23.2
9	Suzuki	1,152,000	1,283,000	-10.2
10	Renault	1,106,989	1,326,164	-16.5