Hyundai/Kia Motors Group Targets 85 Tln Won in Sales
- With 6.78 tln won in investment in facilities, R&D projects

Hyundai-Kia Motors Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo declared "Innovation for Humanity" as the automotive group's management ideal for this year.
In his speech at the group's new year ceremony, he said he will strive to maintain the group's position in the world as a top global enterprise by expanding its sales and investment to make it more competitive. The group announced that it targets to achieve 85 trillion won in sales, up 17 percent from last year with car sales amounting to 3.729 million units, up 17.3 percent from last year. It plans to invest 6.78 trillion won in facilities this year, up 23.8 percent from last year.
The chairman said the group had a good year last year with sales totaling 73 trillion won, including 48 trillion won from car sales totaling 3.18 million units. Hyundai Motor sold 10 million cars since the start of its operation, while Kia Motors recorded $7 billion in sales last year. Both auto affiliates won an international recognition for superior quality of their cars last year with Chairman Chung having been cited by Business Week, the renowned U.S. business magazine as a top automotive industry leader in the world.
He said things are not going to be easy this year due to sluggish domestic economy, slowdown in world economy and unstable foreign exchange rates. "We should overcome them with a challenging spirit and hope and continue to stay on track for continued growth," the chairman said.
Up until now, Hyundai Motor has been striving to be among the top 5 auto firms in the world, but now that its been achieved, the company should improve the quality of its cars for quantitative growth to compensate for its top position in the automotive world under the flag of "Innovation for Humanity."
The auto company will now focus on the U.S. car market as its car plant in Alabama will be put online to turn out 300,000 cars, making Hyundai a truly global auto maker.
Hyundai/Kia's global operations started already from China with its China sales reaching 210,000 cars last year, up 108 percent year-on-year. Its Chinese affiliate Beijing Hyundai's annual production reached 200,000 in just 24 months since its operation last year, the fastest record in the industry to reach that level of auto production. By 2008, the company plans to produce 600,000 cars with Kia's Chinese affiliate projected to hike its production to 430,000 cars in 2006 with the completion of its second auto plant in China with the capacity to produce 300,000 cars annually.
Hyundai/Kia's sold 3.18 million cars last year including 806,000 at home and 2,374,000 cars abroad, for 48 trillion won and 73 trillion won for the group.
This year's business plan is characterized by an active investment plan totaling 6.76 trillion won, up 23.8 percent from last year, including 3.56 trillion won in facilities in the United States, China and Europe to make the auto maker truly a global one. The balance of the investment is headed for R&D projects totaling 3.2 trillion won.
Hyundai/Kia plans to debut from six to seven new models this year under their attacking marketing plan, all characterized by environment-friendly features. The new models would include the latest model for Grandeur XG, Santa Fe and Optima to fire up the sluggish car market in the country and to hike brand value of their fast selling models in the U.S. auto market so that record exports set last year may be upheld this year also.
The automotive group plans to strengthen its position as a top business group with a management ideal that personnel is a key to its operations. The group will train talented individuals both inside and outside the group and bring them along and groom them for top managerial positions in the group so that it would have a base to jump to become a top global business group.
The group will try to make this year's management ideal an everyday life philosophy, not just slogan for a mid-to-long-term vision and push it through innovative, but voluntary thoughts and actions, the sense of mission for it will lead the auto industry in the future and cooperation. nw