Low-profile Korean brand growing at light speed

With the spectre of bankruptcy now in the rear-view mirror, Korea’s SsangYong has more more than doubled its Australian sales to the end of July compared to 2022.

The long-running battler brand is at last living up to its potential, having sold 3795 pickups and SUVs between January and July, representing growth of 110 per cent.

With SsangYong Australia’s previous full year sales record (January to December) being the 3943 cars it sold in 2022, it’ll smash its all-time record. If the brand keeps on its current pace it will finish 2023 with around 6500 sales.

To give this result a little more context, that means the company has sold more cars in Australia this year than Jeep (2937), Mini (2575) and Peugeot (1374).

Leading the charge is the SsangYong Musso dual-cab ute with 2304 sales, up 220.9 per cent YoY. Next is the related Rexton large SUV with 1117 sales (up 47 per cent).

The smaller Korando, a more urban-focused crossover (374 sales, up 13.7 per cent), is the relative weak point in a three-model range on account of much steeper competition.

SsangYong has had a colourful history in Australia since 2005, being distributed by independent importers Sime Darby and Ateco, before a pause and then re-launch under a factory-led arrangement from 2019.

Globally the company has gone from crisis to crisis, though its vehicles have for some time now belied this fact by being quite competitive.

Its most recent crisis came after former majority shareholder, India’s Mahindra, pulled the pin in 2020, placing it into a period of flux and giving the Korean government some headaches as it sought to facilitate a rescue.

After a few suitors kicked the tyres and backed out, a consortium led by chemical and steel conglomerate KG Group took majority ownership in August 2022 and set about steadying the ship.

At the start of 2023 the company made the decision to change the company’s name from SsangYong to KG Mobility, stating that “under the name of SsangYong, the company has a fandom but also has a painful image”.

The company shortly after this posted its first quarterly profit since 2016.

It’s not yet been confirmed when SsangYong Australia will move to the new corporate naming and rebrand as KG Mobility Australia.

We do however know there’s some new and facelifted product coming by late 2023 or early 2024, including the updated Musso and updated Rexton – covered here and here – as well as a new medium SUV model called Torres with an expected EV option alongside the petrol.

KG Mobility/SsangYong Motor unveiled this electric version of the Torres at the 2023 Seoul Mobility Show and confirmed it would use a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery from BYD.

Longer term, KG Mobility used the same event to show off a trio of concepts previewing production vehicles due before 2025. Details remain scant at this time, but the trio comprises an electric ute and two electric SUVs.