Kia Corporation (Korean: 기아, IPA: [ki.A], formerly referred to as Kyungsung Precision Industry (京城精密工業) and Kia Motors Corporation) is a South Korean multinational car manufacturer centered in Seoul, South Korea. It is South Korea’s 2d biggest automobile manufacturer, after its parent enterprise, Hyundai Motor Company, with income of over 2.8 million motors in 2019. As of 2015, Kia is owned through Hyundai, which holds a 33.88% stake valued at simply over US$6 billion. Kia in flip is a minority proprietor of extra than twenty Hyundai subsidiaries starting from four.9% up to forty five.37%, totaling greater than US$8.Three billion.
History
Kia Motors’ South Korean manufacturing unit
Kia logo from 1994 to 2021
Origins and early expansion
Kia became shaped on June 9, 1944, as Kyungsung Precision Industry, a producer of steel tubing and bicycle components, finally generating Korea’s first home bicycle, the Samchuly, in 1951. In 1952, Kyungsung Precision Industry modified its call to Kia Industries, and later constructed Honda-licensed small bikes (starting in 1957) and Mazda-licensed trucks (1962) and motors (1974). The business enterprise opened its first included automobile assembly plant in 1973, the Sohari Plant.
Kia constructed the small Mazda-based Brisa variety of cars till 1981, while production got here to an end after the new navy dictator Chun Doo-hwan enforced industry consolidation. This compelled Kia to give up passenger automobiles and recognition entirely on light vans. Kia assembled some hundred greater vehicles in 1982 and 1983, after the ban had taken impact, however no passenger cars had been constructed in 1984 and 1985.
Prior to the forced 1981 shutdown, Kia had rounded out its passenger vehicle lineup with other foreign models assembled underneath license: the Fiat 132 and the Peugeot 604. The import of these knock-down kits become accepted so long as Kia exported five automobiles for every unmarried Fiat or Peugeot introduced in (Hyundai needed to meet the identical requirement).
Starting in 1986 (when best 26 motors have been manufactured, followed through over ninety five,000 the following 12 months), Kia rejoined the automobile enterprise in partnership with Ford. Kia produced numerous Mazda-derived cars for both domestic income in South Korea and for export into different international locations – where they were placed at the finances give up of the marketplace.
These fashions covered the Kia Pride, based at the Mazda 121 and the Avella, which had been offered in North America and Australasia as the Ford Festiva and Ford Aspire. In 1992, Kia Motors America became included within the United States. The first Kia-branded vehicles inside the United States had been bought from four dealerships in Portland, Oregon, in 1993. Since then, Kia methodically elevated one place at a time. Dealers in 1994 sold the Sephia and a few years later the US section extended their line with the Sportage. Over one hundred Kia dealerships existed across thirty states through 1995, selling a report 24,740 cars.
Hyundai Motor Company takeover
Kia declared financial ruin in 1997, during the Asian financial disaster, and in 1998 reached an agreement with Hyundai Motor Company to diversify by using exchanging possession among the two corporations. Hyundai Motor Company obtained 51% of the company, outbidding Ford Motor Company, which had owned an interest in Kia Motors since 1986. After subsequent divestments, Hyundai Motor Company owns approximately one 1/3 of Kia Motor Corporation. While Hyundai Motor Company remains Kia’s biggest stakeholder, Kia Motor Company additionally retains ownership in some 22 Hyundai Motor Company subsidiaries.
Later improvement
Since 2005, Kia has targeted on the European market and has diagnosed design as its “core future boom engine” – main to the hiring of Peter Schreyer in 2006 as leader design officer and his next creation of a brand new corporate grille known as the ‘Tiger Nose’. In October 2006, Kia Motors America broke floor for Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia in West Point, Georgia, representing a US$1 billion funding for the employer.Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia opened in February 2010, after Kia recorded its 15th consecutive year of increased U.S. Market share. Kia commenced using an angular “KIA” wordmark logo in early 2021.
Board of administrators
As of March 2023:
- Chung Eui-solar, Chairman
- Song Ho-sung, President and CEO
- Jun-Young Choi, Executive Vice President and Chief Safety Officer
- Woo-Jeong Joo, Executive Vice President & CFO
- Chol-su Han, Outside Director
- Wha-sun Jo, Outside Director
- Chyun Chan-hyuk, Outside Director
- Shin Jae-young, Outside Director
- Jennifer Hyunjong Shin, Outside Director
2018 fleet of electric and hybrid-electric cars
Kia Motors America (KMA), now referred to as Kia America, Inc., changed into incorporated in California on October 21, 1992, and became the American sales, advertising, and distribution arm of Kia Corporation. Kia America is based totally in Irvine, California, and presently offers a complete line of cars through greater than 755 sellers throughout the United States. The first fashions that were added to the U.S. Marketplace in 1993 were KIA Sephia and Kia Sportage 4×4. In the US, sales started in late 1993 for the 1994 model year, at 4 dealerships in Portland, Oregon.
The two fashions maximum recently introduced to the U.S. Marketplace have both been highly presented all through the fast time seeing that their launch: the 2018 Stinger overall performance sedan gained popularity with J.D. Power’s inaugural Engineering Award for Highest Rated All-New Vehicle as well as Business Insider’s Car of the Year Award, then the 2020 Telluride made its mark several instances over by way of triumphing important awards from evaluation businesses like Kelley Blue Book, MotorTrend, Hispanic Motor Press also offered the Telluride because the best SUV for 2020, and most currently Edmunds.
As a emblem, KMA has continued to enhance over time as properly; in 2013, Kia Motors America recorded its 18th consecutive 12 months of accelerated U.S. Marketplace share, and for the past 5 consecutive years (2015–2019) it has been diagnosed by means of J.D. Power as the highest ranked mass market logo in initial exceptional.
In November 2009, Kia commenced production at the primary U.S. Kia Motors plant, Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia, in West Point. Though the Kia Sorento crossover car become the most effective model to be assembled there at the beginning, the ability has due to the fact that elevated its manufacturing lines to include the Kia Optima mid-length sedan, now sold because the K5, in 2011 and the just-released Kia Telluride crossover SUV in January 2019. As of September 2019,
the area has efficiently built over three million units of those three models altogether, and shortly after celebrated some other milestone by reaching its tenth year of manufacturing in November 2019. Currently, the ability has a production capacity of 340,000 automobiles consistent with yr (largely committed to the Telluride and Sorento crossover SUVs) and is liable for dispensing them to masses of dealerships within the U.S. And Canada, in addition to satisfying shipments across North America or even foreign places.
Kia Canada
Main article: Kia Canada
Kia Canada was formed in 1999 as a subsidiary of Kia Motors Corporation serving the Canadian marketplace. It is established in Mississauga, Ontario, in which it employs about a hundred and eighty humans. Kia Canada is quality acknowledged for its mid-marketplace lineup of game utility cars and crossovers, which might be halfway in size among SUVs and ordinary sedans, and increasingly more for its electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. In 2021, Kia Canada introduced a new brand and slogan, “Movement that conjures up”. As of 2021, Kia Canada sold nearly eighty,000 motors a yr.
Kia Central & South America Corp.
Kia Central & South America Corp. Is an incorporated department of Kia Corporation in price of income and advertising in forty three nations throughout Central and South America (consisting of Brazil), and the Caribbean. The local headquarters is positioned in Miami, Florida (US).
Kia Europe
Kia Europe is the European income and marketing department of Kia Corporation. It has been promoting automobiles in Europe because the first 1/2 of 1991.Kia Motors Europe is formally based in 1995, in Neu Wulmstorf (close to Hamburg). In 1997, Kia moves its European headquarters from Neu Wulmstorf to Bremen, and due to logistical motives due to the fact round 2005, Kia moved its European headquarters to Eschborn (close to Frankfurt).In 2007, KME moved from its previous location at Hauptstrasse 185, Eschborn (near Frankfurt), to a new cause-built facility adjoining to the Messe, in Frankfurt town centre.
When Kia released in Europe in the course of 1991, it to start with bought most effective the Pride supermini – a rebadged version of the late Eighties Mazda 121. It first of all proved famous with buyers. By the end of 1991, Kia had sold nearly 1,800 Prides within the United Kingdom. The first complete yr, 1992, noticed that determine double, and, in 1993, it multiplied again to nearly five,500 gadgets. However, sales fell in the direction of the quit of the last decade, and the stop of manufacturing changed into in the end announced in May 2000, with its successor – the Rio – not taking place sale for every other 12 months.
From 1995 to 1999, Kia produced left- and proper-hand drive variations of the first technology Sportage SUV at the Karmann factory in Osnabrück, Germany. These have been popular across Europe, but, considering 2002, Kia has gained extra sales in this market thanks to the launch of the larger Sorento. From 1999 until manufacturing of the version ceased in 2003, all Sportage manufacturing reverted to South Korea.The European variety also multiplied inside the spring of 1994 when Kia started uploading the bigger Mentor, a range of medium-sized hatchbacks and sedans which have been marketed as cheaper and nicely-prepared alternatives to the likes of the Ford Escort and the Vauxhall/Opel Astra.
A facelift in 1999 saw the Mentor name retained for the saloon (sedan), but the hatchback turned into renamed Shuma. These models remained on sale till 2004, whilst the more recent Cerato was launched and gave Kia one among its first severe competition towards mainstream manufacturers. The Clarus saloon and Sedona MPV were additionally launched onto the United Kingdom market all through 1999, helping Kia begin its upward push in recognition.
Kia Mexico
The corporation has built a $1 billion manufacturing plant within the northern Mexican state of Nuevo León, which produces three hundred,000 cars a year. Details of the factory, built within the metropolis of Pesquería, were discovered in a joint press convention given by using Kia CEO Hyoung-Keun Lee and the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City on August 28, 2014. The plant become anticipated to be finished in the first 1/2 of 2016. This factory is concerned in controversies because it turned into built on erratically bought land, and the construction agreement turned into made with benefit conditions and out of the nearby inclinations to Kia.
Kia India
The corporation has entered the Indian market in July 2019[50] with their ‘Made for India’ SUV- SP2 Concept now introduced as the worldwide mid-sized SUV Kia Seltos. N. Chandrababu Naidu is lauded to have signed an MOU for the authorities of Andhra Pradesh which came to be one of the most important FDI’s with a total funding of Rs.12,900 crore.
The organization has built a manufacturing facility on a Greenfield land in Anantpur district, Andhra Pradesh near Penukonda. The annual production capacity is three hundred,000 devices. Kia has appointed Kookhyun Shim as MD & CEO for its Indian arm. In his new role, Shim might be liable for leading the carmaker’s expansion inside the Indian marketplace.
Shim will play a main function in making sure KI’s projected timeline and schedule of operations is carried out. He additionally oversaw the development of Kia’s first manufacturing facility in India, to help improve the corporation’s position inside the fifth largest worldwide automotive marketplace. Kia has dedicated investments to the music of $1.1 billion to develop operations in India which include investing in a network of over 250 consumer contact-points that include carrier, sales and spares institutions.On 31 July 2020, Kia crossed a hundred,000 automobile income in India turning into the quickest automobile manufacturer to do so.
Lucky Motor Corporation
Lucky Motor Corporation (LMC) is an vehicle assembler and distributor in Pakistan owned with the aid of the Yunus Brothers Group. Originally called Kia Lucky Motors Pakistan, the organization commenced selling automobiles in 2018 once they released their All New Grand Carnival in Pakistan. In area four 2019, Kia Lucky Motors Pakistan added new domestically synthetic products called the Kia Sportage and Kia Picanto.[54]
Kia Russia
Kia holds a 30% stake in the Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus plant in St. Petersburg that’s being bought in December 2023 following the issues associated with the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The contract includes a yr purchase again clause.[55] In 2022, the organisation’s revenue amounted to 111 billion rubles
