Hyundai Motor, including its affiliate Kia Motors, is closely vying with Renault Group for fourth place in yearly global auto sales.

While Hyundai-Kia ranked fifth in 2010 and 2011 in global vehicle sales, auto industry insiders raised the possibility on Monday that the Korean automotive group would overtake Renault-Nissan Alliance, the long-standing No. 4 player, this year.

Their prediction is based on the sluggish sales of Paris-based Renault, which suffered a drop of about 20 percent in the wake of the eurozone fiscal crisis.

An analyst predicted that Renault will see its sales in the world’s market fall by around 400,000 units in 2012 from 7.39 million units a year earlier.

“In contrast, Hyundai and Kia are estimated to enjoy double-digit growth and post collective sales of between 7 million and 7.1 million units this year,” he said.

After entering the top-five list two years ago for the first time with sales of 5.74 million units, the sister firms sold 6.6 million vehicles in 2011.

While Toyota Motor, General Motors and Volkswagen have been outperforming Hyundai-Kia, Ford Motor has failed to rank among the top five automakers since 2009.

Hyundai-Kia could successfully minimize negative effects from the eurozone debt crisis by mapping out a series of contingency plans in overseas markets, according to analysts.

Meanwhile, the two automakers saw their combined market share top 10 percent in China in the first 11 months of the year for the first time, industry data showed.

They sold a total of 1.19 million vehicles through November in China for a market share of 10.4 percent, trailing Volkswagen and GM.

Their share reached the 10 percent mark for the first time since 2002 when Hyundai established Beijing Hyundai, a 50-50 joint venture in China, with local partner company Beijing Automotive Co.

The January-November sales also represent a 12.7 percent jump from a year ago, and exceed last year’s overall sales of 1.17 million units.

Hyundai-Kia’s Langdong subcompact and K3 led the robust sales in the Chinese market, they added.

“We are beefing up efforts to meet growing demand in the world’s biggest car market by expanding their local plants,” a group spokesman said.

In the United States, Hyundai-Kia achieved 1 million units in vehicle sales for the second consecutive year.

While they have secured a combined annual production capacity of 3.69 million units overseas, their capacity is projected to expand to 4.09 million units over the next two years.

Hyundai Motor seeks to add 100,000 units to its Turkish plant’s annual capacity by 2013 and Kia is scheduled to complete the third plant in China by 2014.

The automotive group has pushed for “glocalization,” a term referring to strategies for garnering sincere support in areas where plants are located. It actively recruited locals and offered them many training opportunities for automobile industry-related skills.

Hyundai completed its establishment of vehicle assembly lines on four continents ― Asia, Europe, North America and South America ― by recently launching a factory in Brazil.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)