While Kia sales in Europe did slip back slightly year-on-year in 2024, they have still grown more than 30% since 2020. In the UK, Kia has sold more than 100,000 cars for three years running, and it is currently the third best-selling brand in 2025, less than 300 units behind second-placed BMW.
Increased competition in Europe from Chinese brands makes for a “difficult market ”, Lee admitted, but Kia will look to further strengthen its aftersales, parts supply and customer journeys in particular.
“We have to strengthen the advantages of Kia in the market,” he said.
Kia will not get embroiled in a price war in Europe in the face of new lower-cost competition and will not ‘push’ cars onto the market; it will instead maintain a laser focus on residual values, which it credits as partly responsible for the “sustainable growth” the brand has enjoyed.
Lee said Kia has done this by maintaining a “pull demand strategy”, by which cars are not pushed to dealers and onto customers at discounted rates but built and sold according to customer demand.
Describing this as a “healthy cycle”, Lee said: “ It might sound very easy, but in reality it requires a very strong determination and sense of principle.”