The compact SUV segment, despite ever more competition, shows no sign of slowing down in Australia – and now Kia has confirmed the arrival of its new Stonic compact SUV for the fourth quarter of 2020.
The Stonic, as mentioned in our 2020 sales projection story, will fill a void in the Kia line-up to take on the likes of Mazda's Mazda 2-based SUV, the CX-3. As you'd expect, Kia Australia is pretty excited about the compact SUV – based on the Rio hatch – arriving locally to further bolster its impressive sales figures.
Roland Rivera, General Manager for Kia Product, is particularly looking forward to the arrival of the compact Stonic. "There is an emerging light SUV segment and we see a real opportunity to take a slice of it," said Rivero. "It shares a platform with Rio, and is dimensionally similar to a Mazda CX-3. Positioning it between Cerato and Seltos is the sweet spot as we see it."
“Dimensionally the Stonic is similar to a CX-3 as well. There’s a clear step there as you go from Stonic to Seltos, to Sportage, which will grow in the new generation - and then to Sorento, which will complete our SUV line-up," Rivera said.
Kia has bucked the trend that has afflicted many car companies locally in that sales of its passenger cars have not taken a huge dent in comparison to burgeoning SUV sales. In fact, Kia has been particularly strong at both. Read More
