How often is a top-seller pulled for being too popular?

POPULARITY has apparently proven the undoing of the top-selling Kia in New Zealand last year, the Sportage.

That’s the gist of explanation from Kia New Zealand in respect to why it has determined to stop selling the current generation of medium SUV, which achieved 36 percent of Kia NZ volume last year, with immediate effect.

A decision that might outwardly seem bizarre to consumers means Kia will be down to just one contender, the smaller Seltos, in the new car market’s strongest sector, potentially for a year, perhaps even longer.

The play enacted over the weekend with reference to the Sportage line-up and prices being withdrawn from the distributor’s website.

Kia put out a press release today citing the reason being that NZ domestic demand has become too great for it to handle as it goes into a period of preparation for the replacement – even though that outcome of that transition is not set to be felt in NZ until next year.

In the release, managing director Todd McDonald said: “There has been an overwhelming response to Kia Sportage, so much so that we are unlikely to meet demand.

“Therefore, in order to manage customer expectations, we have taken the unprecedented step of removing it from our website until the all-new model arrives in 2022.”

A spokesman contacted subsequently elaborated on this, saying that it means “there are no more cars coming.”

The spokesman said the situation has nothing to do with the global shortage of computer semiconductors which appears to be hurting all carmakers, some the point where they have furloughed factories and de-contented some vehicles.

“It is definitely nothing to do with semiconductors.”

The Sportage was Kia New Zealand’s top selling car in 2020, with 2909 registrations.

The next best-selling vehicle was the Seltos, which also sits in the compact SUV sector, the new car category that has been showing the largest returns and growth potential for months.

Seltos accrued 2610 registrations. In all, Kia NZ sold 7973 vehicles last year.

Last month was the quietest for some time for Sportage, with just 87 being registered, all but eight of those heading into rental.

Sportage is Kia’s equivalent of the Hyundai Tucson, which is about to come into New Zealand in a new-generation form.

The Kia equivalent, however, is still undergoing pre-release trials and though it will be shown off in production-ready form later this year, it is not expected to begin assembly until 2022. Kia in South Korea is not saying when though probability points to the second quarter.

Last week some US media ran images of the new car as it underwent trials in camouflaged form.

They said consumers can expect it to deliver a polarizing front-end design, potentially with a split-headlight look similar to older Jeep Cherokee and Nissan Juke models.

The Sportage announcement was a secondary subject of the release, the primary point being to express enthusiasm about a new brand logo that will soon debut on the new Cerato hatch, whose volume have fallen as the market has turned its attention away from orthodox road cars and toward SUVs.