Kia Motors Likely to Drive With Mahesh-sania’s Success in Indian Car Market

Indian tennis stars Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza became the first Indian pair to win a grand slam mixed doubles title at Australian Open 2009 sponsored by Kia Motors at Melbourne. For Bhupathi, Australian Open mixed double victory was his 11th grand slam title while Mirza celebrated her first success at this level. It's been a bit of emotional rollercoaster for both Sania and Bhupathi.

Kia's Association with Australian Open

The Australian Open’s prime sponsor, Kia, has been partnering with the Australian Open to help raise its brand awareness and provide added momentum to advance it into one of the leading global automotive brands. Since its first partnership with the Australian Open in 2002, Kia Motors is once again thrilled to come back to the Australian Open as the Major Sponsor in 2009. Meanwhile Kia Motors has reaffirmed its commitment to the Australian Open Championship for the next five years and is expected to play a key role to promote and support the players as they strut the “world’s biggest stage”.

With their success in Australian Open mixed double, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza are once again hitting the headline for quite some times now and all the sports fraternity in India are just going crazy for them as they brought glory to India in the form of Australian Open gland slam. After the leading cricket players, these have become the most renowned celebrities in the country. And with this success, it is expected that tennis stars Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi would see a fresh line-up of endorsement in India, despite of the financial meltdown and slowdown in the global economy.

In addition to providing courtesy vehicles to the tennis stars, Kia Motors also displays its newest line up around the tennis courts and live sites to exhibit and promote the cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art styling to international audiences.

Kia Motors Corporation, the prime sponsor of Australian Open, is the known Korean manufacturer of quality vehicles founded in 1944. The company produces more than 1.4 million vehicles a year in 14 manufacturing and assembly operations across eight countries which are then sold and serviced through a network of distributors and dealers covering 165 countries. Kia Motors, Korea's second-largest auto manufacturer has sold over 1.26 million units globally last year. Kia considers sponsoring of sporting events as an important part of its marketing blitz this year to conquer internal auto-market at a time when most of the auto manufacturers are struggling to survive in this turmoil of recession. Currently Kia owns market shares of 2.1% in the U.S., 1.7% in Europe, 2.5% in China, and 27.3% in Korea.

In the overseas car markets, the company is planning to launch its new cars including Forte compact and Soul urban crossover vehicle. It also plans to introduce a compact sports coupe and a new SUV and grab a market share of 35% on the home turf this year. At present, the company is 39% owned by Hyundai but in near future, Kia Motors may witness a fruitful year in the Indian car market with the success enjoyed by Sania and Bhupathi.