Hyundai Motor's sales in February shrink 5.5%

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's top automaker, said Monday that its February sales fell 5.5% from a year earlier, affected in part by fewer working days and growing uncertainties in overseas markets.
Hyundai Motor said in a statement that it sold 359,982 vehicles in February, down from 380,919 units tallied a year before.
Its domestic sales came to 46,859 units, down 8.8 percent from a year earlier, while overseas shipments shrank 5% year-on-year to 313,123 units, the company said.
The company cited fewer working days from the Lunar New Year holiday that fell in February this year, unlike last year when it fell in January. Fewer working days reduced production of vehicles available for domestic sales. Slowing growth in emerging markets and deepening currency-related uncertainty were also cited as factors that weighed down its overseas shipments, according to South Korea's News Agency (Yonhap).
The Sonata led overall domestic sales, with a total of 7,306 vehicles sold last month. In particular, the sales of the Sonata hybrid more than tripled to 1,154 units.
Hyundai said that its passenger sedan sales shrank 2.6% last month to 26,402. Sales of SUVs, including the Santa Fe, Tucson ix and Veracruz, also plunged 29.3% year-on-year in February to 7,610 units, the company said.
During the January-February period, Hyundai Motor said it sold a cumulative 746,471 cars, down 5.7% from the same period a year earlier.