Kia plans to grow its dealer network to 195 sites to achieve its target of selling 100,000 units by 2020 and is already holding capacity planning sessions with its partners.

The brand currently has 177 dealers and has identified geographical locations it will need to fill as its volumes grow.

“We have done a review of the country based on our long term plan to get to 100,000 sales and believe the optimum number is 195. As we grow our volume more of those territories that currently don’t have representation will become viable as standalone points,” said Paul Philpott, Kia’s UK CEO and president.

“Typically the first people we’ll talk to are the neighbouring dealers. We have a lot of dealers who would like to go from one point to two, or two points to three and we have a number of good quality dealer groups wanting to join the franchise, so we can be a bit choosy about who we expand with.”

Around 40% of Kia’s network are single sites, Arnold Clark is its biggest partner with nine sites, followed by Stoneacre and Wessex with four apiece. “We’re working with our dealers on capacity plans. We’ve grown from 30,000 to 72,000 units in six years, so they’ve already gown capacity but growing to 100,000 by the end of the decade means they have to look at capacity again. We’re working with each dealer on a viable business plan for further growth and further capacity, so the investment has to be viable, otherwise our dealer profitability will suffer.”

Meanwhile, Kia believes it is on course to achieve another record breaking year with 75,000 targeted by the close of 2014. The brand expects the March plate-change to generate its biggest ever sales month with registrations of over 12,700 units, the record it set in September 2013.

Last year the brand grew UK sales to 72,090, a 8.2% rise on 2012, marking the first time it had achieved over 70,000 sales, powered by a 17% increase in retail sales. “We have a plan to grow to around 75,000 this year, which is fairly modest given our recent growth, but we do not have a new product in one of the big volume segments this year.

Original Story on Motor Trader – http://www.motortrader.com/latest-news/kia-plans-grow-195-dealer-sites/