We consider the following Kirchhoff-type problem in an unbounded exterior domain
$\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{3}$
:
(*)
\begin{align}
\left\{
\begin{array}{ll}
-\left(a+b\displaystyle{\int}_{\Omega}|\nabla u|^{2}\,{\rm d}x\right)\triangle u+\lambda u=f(u), & x\in\Omega,\\
\\
u=0, & x\in\partial \Omega,\\
\end{array}\right.
\end{align}
where a > 0,
$b\geq0$
, and λ > 0 are constants,
$\partial\Omega\neq\emptyset$
,
$\mathbb{R}^{3}\backslash\Omega$
is bounded,
$u\in H_{0}^{1}(\Omega)$
, and
$f\in C^1(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R})$
is subcritical and superlinear near infinity. Under some mild conditions, we prove that if
\begin{equation*}-\Delta u+\lambda u=f(u), \qquad x\in \mathbb R^3 \end{equation*}
has only finite number of positive solutions in
$H^1(\mathbb R^3)$
and the diameter of the hole
$\mathbb R^3\setminus \Omega$
is small enough, then the problem (*) admits a positive solution. Same conclusion holds true if Ω is fixed and λ > 0 is small. To our best knowledge, there is no similar result published in the literature concerning the existence of positive solutions to the above Kirchhoff equation in exterior domains.