Kia, Hyundai and Lynk & Co dominate sales in February

The days when the Dutch bought Opels and Volkswagens en masse are far behind us. It is now the Korean brands that are by far the most popular. Kia and Hyundai dominate the sales statistics, with the Chinese Lynk & Co being the outlier among the models.

According to data from Bovag, Rai Association and RDC, 28,128 new passenger cars were registered in the Netherlands in February. That’s an increase of nearly 24 percent over the same month in 2022.

Kia and Hyundai dominate the growth market

A total of 60,822 new cars will be registered in 2023, an increase of 13.5 percent compared to the first two months of the previous year.

The Bovag and Rai Association expects around 340,000 registrations throughout the year. That would mean an increase of around 9 percent. New car sales have only fallen in recent years.

Koreans have a combined market share of 15 percent

Group members Kia and Hyundai are increasingly dominating the Dutch market. In February, they took a combined 15.2 percent market share, with 8.2 percent for Kia (2,295 cars) and 7.0 percent for Hyundai (1,975 cars).

The top 5 brands are completed by Volkswagen (1820), Ford (1785) and Toyota (1742). The big winners are Cupra (from 8 in February 2022 to 110 now), Lynk & Co (from 369 to 1098), MG (from 77 to 327) and Tesla (from 83 to 725).

Lynk & Co tops the top 5 models

Lynk & Co therefore leads the model range (the Chinese brand has only one model). The Lynk & Co 01 (1089 units) are followed by Opel Corsa (887), Volvo XC40 (749), Ford Focus (687) and Tesla Model Y (653).

Seat is growing strongly, Honda is falling sharply

Do we notice anything else? Naturally. Among other things, that Fiat actually only sells 500s and Honda dropped significantly from 112 to 42 registrations in February.

One more thing: Despite the serious shortage of electric cars, Seat is growing quite a bit this year. Cars were registered in January and February 1949. In the same period last year there were 891.