Kia's controversial ute helps pass major Australian milestone

37 years after arriving in Australia, Kia has crossed over 1,000,000 sales locally, and it looks to keep building on its recent success.

The one millionth Kia has been delivered to an Australian customer, and it’s the new Tasman ute which took the honours.

On September 3, Andrea and James Allendorf were given the keys to their new Denim Blue-finished Kia Tasman X-Pro ute in a handover ceremony at Motorama Kia Moorooka.

Attended by Kia COO Dennis Piccoli, Motorama CEO Andrew Savvas, dealer principal Joel Mullins, and Kia ambassadors Darren Lockyer (former rugby league player) and Pat Rafter (former tennis player), the Tasman’s delivery marked the latest milestone for Kia locally.

Kia officially launched in Australia in 1988 with the Rocsta, though it was sold as the Asia Rocsta and sold by Asia Motors, a subsidiary of Kia Motors. Just 60 examples of the Jeep lookalike were sold that year.

Ten years later in 1998, Kia had accumulated 12,524 total sales, which subsequently jumped to 180,829 at the end of 2008. A decade later, Kia sold its 500,000th vehicle to an Australian customer in July 2018.

Given the brand’s seven-year warranty has been in place since 2014, the car which helped Kia achieve the half-million sales milestone would’ve only just stopped being covered by its warranty two months ago.

Kia isn’t showing any signs of slowing either, having eclipsed 80,000 annual sales for the first time in 2024 (achieving 81,787 deliveries), while year-to-date it’s up by just 1.3 per cent on the same period last year.

Currently Kia’s best-seller is the Sportage mid-sized SUV, followed by the Carnival people-mover, Seltos small SUV and Sorento large SUV. The recently launched Tasman ute was its fourth-best selling model in August.

“Reaching one million new car sales is a testament to the hard work and loyalty that each of our dealer network partners has placed in the Kia brand,” Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith said.

“We certainly couldn’t reach this milestone without our customers from over the years, and we thank you for your trust in choosing a Kia model as your new car purchase.”

In an Australian first, the Allendorf’s small business, Internal Demolitions, was gifted a one-year sponsorship of the Brisbane Broncos (who Kia also sponsors), receiving signage, ticketing and merchandise for the 2026 NRL season.