Kia Malaysia targets 30k units of CKD cars by 2026, exports to make up 60 percent

• CKD to start in Kulim with the Kia Carnival, April 2022
• First year production volume at 10,000 units, including exports
• 4 CKD models - Carnival, Sorento, Sportage, Niro (CKD BEV mulled)

Kia Malaysia, the local vehicle assemble joint venture between Kia Motor and Bermaz Auto, announced on Friday that it is aiming to hit a cumulative total of 100,000 locally-assembled Kia cars in Malaysia for both domestic sales and export by the end of 2026.

Kia Malaysia did not mention its annual sales target for 2022 – the year Kia will be relaunched in Malaysia with a refreshed Kia logo, and under a new distributor Dinamikjaya Motor, a subsidiary of Bermaz Auto Bhd., which also owns Mazda distributor Bermaz Motor.

However, it did flash out two slides to the assembled press, one showing a cumulative 100,000 units production target by 2026, which also translates to a 25,000 units annual production volume for that year, and another showing 19,000 units in annual exports volume for the same year. 

Production of Kia vehicles in Malaysia will kick off in April 2022 with the Kia Carnival, followed by the Kia Sorento in late-2022.

Also read: Kia Carnival's price confirmed for Malaysia – 11-seater, RM 196,340, CBU from Korea

The Kia Sportage and Kia Niro will join the local line-up in 2023. The company is also studying to assemble a fully electric, BEV variant of the Niro by 2023 / 2024.

For its first year of operation, Kia Malaysia is aiming for a modest 10,000 units (including production for exports), growing by about 5,000 units annually to reach 30,000 units in 2026.

60 percent of the cars produced in Malaysia will be exported, starting with 6,000 units in 2022, growing by 3,000 units every year to hit 15,000 units in 2025, before adding 4,000 more units to hit 19,000 units in 2026.

This also implies that Kia’s sales target in its first year operation (with its new local partner Bermaz Auto) will be at 4,000 units in 2022, before growing to 11,000 units by the end of 2026.

The vehicles will be produced at a Kia-Bermaz jointly-owned facility located within the Inokom automotive manufacturing plant in Kulim, Kedah. The plant will also serve as Kia’s regional vehicle production hub for South East Asia.

Malaysia-assembled Kia vehicles will be exported to regional countries in South East Asia.

No export destinations were mentioned but the presentation slide highlights 9 countries – Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Laos, and Myanmar. We won’t read too much into this yet because Kia also has a relatively big local manufacturing operation in Vietnam, with contract manufacturer the Thaco Group.

Sales of Kia vehicles in Malaysia peaked in 2006, when the brand was still distributed Naza Kia Malaysia, which shifted 35,998 units (including Naza-badged Kia models) that year, putting it ahead of Honda, which did 26,527 units then.

Sales has been on a decline ever since, dropping by nearly half to 19,738 units in 2007, before hitting rock bottom with just 3,432 units in 2019, after which the partnership with Naza was dissolved.

In April 2021, Dinamikjaya was appointed as the new distributor.

For reference, an 11,000 units annual sales target is at the level of what Mazda (11,651 units in 2019) was doing before Covid-19 and chip supply shortage disrupted sales.