Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have established themselves as global top five automakers as their reputation for quality gets a big boost. 

(Photo: Hyundai Motor Group)

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have made strides to become global automakers. The two automakers have established themselves as global top-five automakers, as they saw global sales surpass 8 million units in 2014, and they have topped evaluations of newly-released cars. The Korean automakers are not behind when it comes to premium brands.

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have seen their automobiles’ reputation for quality get a big boost with J.D. Power, a famous car quality evaluation organization. J.D. Power placed Kia Motors at the top of its order list in terms of quality and upgraded Hyundai Motor to third on the list. Kia Motors beat Porsche and other carmakers to claim the top position in a quality study conducted by the U.S.-based global marketing information provider J.D. Power.

Hyundai Automotive Group’s rapid growth is owed to a greater improvement in overseas car production and marketing through the building of global production centers. The group has rushed to secure global production centers to produce cars tailored to meet local clients’ demands since 2002. In 2012, a decade later, the group dedicated a car production plant in Brazil, complementing a global production center regime covering such advanced places as the United States and Europe, as well as such emerging economy markets as China, India, Russia and Brazil.

Kia Motors has begun mass producing the K3 compact car in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. The company is striving to make the plant a production center to make inroads into the Central and Southern American markets. The Mexican plant is the automaker’s fourth overseas production center following plants in the United States, China and Slovakia. Kia Motors poured $1 billion (about 1.12 billion won) in dedicating the Mexico plant. 

The plant, built on a site covering 3.35 million sq. meters, is outfitted with press, car body, painting and automobile trim lines. Kia Motors’ cooperative companies have converged on a nearby site covering 1.65 million sq. meters to have synergetic effects with the automaker. 

Kia Motors now has a capacity of producing 1.86 million units overseas — 340,000 units in the United States, 890,000 units in China, 330,000 units in Slovakia and 300,000 units in Mexico. 

Hyundai Motor also has diverse overseas production centers to produce and sell cars tailored to meet local clients’ tastes. The automaker, which also has overseas production lines in Turkey, India, Czech Republic, China, the United States, Russia, and Brazil, attracts local clients’ hearts by releasing localized cars. 

Hyundai Motor has already built and operated three production plants in China, which has emerged as one of the world’s biggest automobile markets. The automaker, which has launched a project to build a fourth and fifth production plant in Changzhou and Chongqing, targets production beginning in 2018.

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have turned to globalization strategies to proactively cope with changes and crises in the global automobile market. 

In 2015, Hyundai Motor launched the premium brand “Genesis” to tap the global premium car market. In his speech at a ceremony to launch the 2016 business year, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo said his group is making all-out efforts to help the Genesis make a splash in the luxury car market and nurture Korea’s representative quality brands. 

The G80 and G90 (dubbed “EQ900 in Korea) have already caused a sensation in the nation. Hyundai Motor plans to put the models into the U.S. market, placing its rival premium car makers on the alert. 

The company plans to expand the Genesis lineups to six kinds of cars, including compact luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles, and inaugurate the Genesis’s own brand marketing team.