Hyundai and Kia prove their competitiveness in the U.S.

The brand and product competitiveness of Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors in the American market have received high praise. TrueCar.com, an automotive solutions provider focused on new car pricing, trends, and forecasting, recently posted the 2011 Annual Performance Scorecards for automotive manufacturers and brands on its website. Among the 18 major automobile companies in the U.S., Hyundai and Kia ranked top with a grade of A+ for the overall evaluation. Each manufacturer and brand was evaluated by such factors like discount percentage, price variation, customer loyalty, retail sales change, and market share change. While Hyundai was rated top in the manufacturer performance scorecard, its affiliated company Kia was also ranked top in the brand performance scorecard. For brand performance, Kia received a grade of A+, tying with MINI and and Volkswagen. Experts say that Kia received its top ranking thanks to its increased market share over last year and the reasonable price of its cars. While maintaining the lowest incentives in the industry, Hyundai and Kia recorded the largest sales in the U.S. last year. Hyundai and Kia sold over 11 billion cars last year, an increase of 26.5% from the previous year. At the North American International Auto Show in January this year, Hyundai’s Elantra won the Car of the Year award and the company also ranked at the top by repurchase rate. Maintaining a reasonable price through quality and customer loyalty were the two more reasons that the company received the highest rating in the evaluation, Hyundai and Kia Motors said. "Experiencing robust retail sales growth while maintaining incentives spending discipline is the ultimate measure of consumer acceptance for any automaker and Hyundai reached that goal in 2011," said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com. Sourced from Korea.net