Hyundai Motor projects difficulties in meeting sales target

[THE INVESTOR] Hyundai Motor said on Oct. 26 that meeting the 2016 sales target will be difficult. At the investor relations event, Hyundai officials said that the target is unlikely to be met citing slowing sales in advanced and emerging markets, and the recently concluded labor dispute here.

The company estimates that this year’s labor dispute cost more than 140,000 units in lost production and trillions of won in lost sales.

Hyundai Motor Group’s automobile sales target for this year, including both Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors, is 8.13 million units. However, the two carmakers’ combined sales for the first three quarters of the year has come in at just over 5.62 million units, down 1.8 percent compared to the same period last year.

Hyundai Motor, however, said that the normalization of domestic production will enable it to push up sales during the remainder of the year.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)