Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday it would step up efforts to take a bigger slice of the sales pie in Europe. The market is widely expected see a silver lining of recovery in car sales as early as 2014 after sluggish sales for more than a decade.

“Carmakers have long waited to secure an earlier edge in Europe after the prolonged recession there. This year would be the year for them to specify their full-fledged efforts for next year,” said Park Hong-jae, executive vice president and chief of Hyundai Automotive Research Institute.

Before the potential recovery, he pointed out, European carmakers must undergo a painful restructuring this year while other companies need to adapt to “new normals” such as moderate sales growth both in emerging and advanced markets and the usual belt-tightening in costs.

The Hyundai-affiliated think tank has recently picked five key trends in the global car industry this year: the weakening Japanese yen, enhanced leadership of Volkswagen and Toyota, rise of Chinese carmakers, protective policy of each government and ever-evolving technical innovation.

The weak yen, which may not be an immediate threat to Hyundai now, is likely to affect the largest Korean carmaker’s exports negatively if the trend continues over the long term.

Compared to the weak yen in the mid-2000s, the institute said, Hyundai’s product quality and engineering prowess have much improved, while Japanese carmakers have also transferred much of their production bases abroad.

“Emerging markets, such as BRICS nations, would continue to grow in the next 10 years but at a slower pace than before the 2008 financial crisis. The polarization of car preference for premium or cheaper models would deepen,” Park said.

“The speed of technical innovation is soaring at an unprecedented pace. Each government will come up with more protective policies to defend their local carmakers and related suppliers from the heated competition globally.”

Unlike its global rivals that plan to roll out new models this year, Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors have no special launches this year, except the facelift of the Genesis luxury sedan.

Hyundai plans to continue expanding sales volume through their flagship models and to speed up preparedness for the recovery of car sales in 2014, especially in Europe.

According to the day’s earnings release, Hyundai’s annual profit increased 5.1 percent last year to 8.43 trillion won ($7.88 billion) on strong sales in overseas markets, especially those of their pricier models with higher margins.

The Korean auto giant sold 4.41 million cars, including 667,496 in Korea and 3.74 million globally, and logged 84.4 trillion won ($77.5 billion) in sales.

When combined with the car sales of its affiliate Kia Motors, Hyundai Motor Group was the fifth-largest carmaker last year, behind Toyota, General Motors, Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan Alliance, according to recent industry data.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)