Ceed and a “substantially facelifted” Sportage were set to be significant importance to fleet decision-makers, John Hargreaves (pictured), Kia’s head of fleet and remarketing, told Fleet News at Company Car In Action 2018.
Which models have been the most popular with fleets on your stand this year?
It’s been the two ends of the spectrum really: the high-performance end has been popular, and so have the low emission cars.
Stinger has been out almost all of the time.
It is a striking looking car, but it is also practical and we do think there will be a place for it as a mainstream car.
The Soul EV, Niro hybrid and Optima plug-in hybrid has also been popular.
What is your priority this year?
We have got some important new fleet models – Ceed and a substantially facelifted Sportage - coming out this year, and our priority is to get good launches of those cars, to ensure they are well positioned with fleets and from a wholelife cost point of view.
Ceed will be available in three body styles – five-door hatch, estate and shooting brake – and will be released on a staggered launch from August.
Sportage is quite a major change and will be available as a diesel hybrid for the first time.
What are your fleet sales expectations this year and longer term?
We are looking for a small growth this year.
In the context of a declining market, this is quite hard to achieve but so far we have managed it with fleet sales up about 7% year-on-year with the market down by a similar amount.
This means our fleet market share has gone up about 0.5 percentage points compared to last year and we are now more than 4% year to date.
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