Kia Motors Corp., Korea's second-largest automaker, said Friday that its third-quarter net profit jumped 28 percent on-year as robust overseas sales offset sluggish domestic demand.
Its consolidated net profit reached 829.4 billion won ($756 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with a 647.9 billion won profit a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Sales rose 16.4 percent on-year to 11.6 trillion won during the July-September period, and operating profit increased 4.1 percent to 861.2 billion won, Kia Motors said.
For the first nine months of the year, Kia posted 3.1 trillion won in net profit, up 14.6 percent from a year ago. Sales climbed 11.6 percent on-year to 35.9 trillion won and operating profit jumped 18.6 percent to 3.2 trillion won during the January-September period.
Shares of Kia Motors Corp were trading at 62,200 won on the Seoul bourse as of 1:56 p.m., down 5.76 percent from the previous session's close.
Kia sold 2.03 million vehicles worldwide in the first nine months, up 11.3 percent from a year earlier. Domestic sales fell 4.7 percent on-year to 349,000 units mainly due to sluggish demand. Still, the poor sales at home were offset by strong performance in the United States, Europe and China.
In the U.S., Kia sold 435,000 vehicles during the January-September period, up 18.4 percent from a year ago, on the back of aggressive marketing and increased brand awareness. Its market share stood at 4 percent.
Kia's sales also jumped 20.2 percent and 10.9 percent in Europe and China during the cited period, respectively.
Earlier this month, Kia ranked 87th with a brand value of $4.09 billion at the Best Global Brands 2012 released by the international branding consultancy Interbrand Corp. earlier this month. It was the first time for the carmaker to move into the world's top 100 in brand value, seeing an increase from $1.1 billion in 2007.
Park Han-woo, Kia Motors' chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts and journalists that his company will produce 3 million vehicles per year, beginning in 2014 when the construction of its third plant is completed.
Currently, Kia Motors operates two plants in China that have a combined annual capacity of 430,000 cars.
He also said Kia Motors could achieve its 2012 sales target of 2.7 million units this year, though it lost production of 60,000 units due to prolonged wage negotiations with labor union in the third quarter.
Kia Motors and Korea's largest automaker, Hyundai Motor Co., are flagship companies of Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest carmaker. (Yonhap)