Hyundai Motor, Kia's US sales fall by 11% amid global chip shortage

Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia said on Wednesday their combined sales in the United States fell 11 per cent last month from a year earlier amid the prolonged global chip shortage.

Hyundai, its independent Genesis brand, and Kia sold 128,283 vehicles in the world's most important automobile market in July compared with 143,779 units a year ago, according to the companies' sales data.

Hyundai's sales declined 11 per cent to 60,631 units last month from 68,500 a year ago.

Kia's were also down 11 per cent to 62,449 from 70,099 during the same period, reports Yonhap news agency.

But Genesis' sales rose 0.4 percent to 5,203 units from 5,180 during the same period.

From January to July, the carmakers' sales in the U.S. fell 12 percent to 831,158 autos from 948,723 during the same period of last year, the data showed.

Late last month, Hyundai Motor named a new chief executive for its US operations.

Hyundai promoted Randy Parker to be CEO of Hyundai Motor America.

He will be in charge of Hyundai's commercial automotive operations in the US market.

Parker will report to Jose Munoz, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor America.

--IANS

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