The company Kia Motors Slovakia produced more than 252,000 vehicles in 2011 which were exported to all European countries. The factory marked a 10 % year-on-year increase in car production and a 12% year-on-year increase in engine production when more than 359,000 gasoline and diesel engines rolled off production lines. Kia plans to grow the output in Slovakia even further so it aims to produce around 285,000 vehicles this year. Last year Kia launched the second engine shop and increased its total engine production capacity up to 450,000 units per year. The small multipurpose vehicle Kia Venga became another model to be produced in Slovakia in October. Moreover, by the end of 2011 Kia recruited and trained 900 new employees so the regular third shift in January 2012 was launched. In total, Kia currently employs more than 3,900 people. “The year 2011 was very positive for our company as we produced more than 252,000 cars and recorded a 10%-growth. Thanks to our employees’ strong effort we extended our engine production capacity and started the production of a new model Kia Venga. Currently, we focus on regular three-shift operation so we can reach the full plant capacity within the first quarter of 2012,“ said Eek-Hee Lee, President and CEO of Kia Motors Slovakia. “The major challenge for the upcoming period is the preparation for the volume production launch of completely new Kia cee’d. I believe the new model will help us to increase our output up to 285,000 cars this year,“ added Mr. Lee.
The entire leader among the Kia produced car models has become a sporty-utility vehicle Kia Sportage. More than 101,000 produced units of the favorite SUV represented 40% of the overall company car production. Kia Sportage found many new customers all in Europe and it became the third bestselling car on the Slovak market. The cee’d family represents more than 103,000 units which means 41% of the total production and Venga, launched in October, represents 11,000 units which means around 4% of production. Kia Motors Slovakia also produced in overall 36,000 Hyundai ix35 cars until June 2011. Thanks to the extension of production capacity, Kia recorded a 12% year-on-year increase in engine production with more than 359,000 produced engines, which means 50 % of gasoline and and 50% of diesel units in overall. A 1.6–liter diesel engine became the most produced type with more than 102,000 produced units which represented 28 % of the overall engine production. The key factor of the production growth of all diesel engines is a high demand for sporty-utility vehicles. Thanks to the fact Kia recorded a 37% year-on-year increase of the production of diesel engines.
Kia Motors Slovakia exports the vehicles to the whole Europe. The main markets did not change remarkably in 2011. More than 23% of its total production company delivered to Russia, 10% to Great Britain, 9% to Germany, 8% to Spain and 5% to France. The rest of production was exported into another 44 countries. Almost 2% of cars were produced for the Slovak market. At the beginning of 2012, the company launched the third work shift and increased a number of employees up to 3,900. The company is actually preparing for production of the second generation of the Kia cee’d model which will be introduced at Geneva Motor Show in March 2012.
