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HYUNDAI

Hyundai is a producer of cars and trucks based in Seoul, South Korea. Hyundai owns nearly one-third of carmaker Kia Motors and is one of the largest manufacturers of automobiles in the world. Since its founding in 1967, Hyundai has enjoyed remarkable worldwide success, considering that most of the company’s primary competitors were founded over a century ago.

Hyundai owns a car production factory in Ulsan, South Korea, that can manufacture more than 1.5 million vehicles every year. In an interesting confluence of corporate strategy, Hyundai’s first production vehicle for the consumer market was undertaken in a partnership with Ford in 1968. That car, the Cortina, was marketed in the United Kingdom under the Ford banner and ended up becoming the most-sold car in the UK during the 1970s.

Sales of the Hyundai Pony, a subcompact hatchback released in Canada in 1984, were so robust that the car became one of the best-selling imported cars in the country during the 1980s. The Pony unfortunately was never introduced in the U.S. due to strict emissions testing standards that prevented the Pony from going to market.

After the successes of the 90s, chairman of Hyundai Chung Mong Koo was charged in 2006 with embezzling over $100 million from company coffers, resulting in vice-chairman Kim Dong-jin taking over CEO duties until 2011, at which point Koo returned to his role as chairman.

In 2015, the lineup of Hyundai cars and SUVs remains impressive and compelling for the value-minded buyer and luxury consumer alike. Models including the Accent, the Elantra and the Sonata are all represented in various configurations, while newer models including the Veloster, Genesis, the Equus and the Tucson FCEV are all available at reasonable prices.

Hyundai boasts more than 6,000 authorized dealerships around the world, all of which carry a wide array of new and used Hyundai models. Kia models can also be discovered at many of these locations. In 2013, Hyundai generated $86 billion in revenue and counted more than 60,000 employees, all of whom were non-unionized and without a collective agreement. Hyundai also has several subsidiaries, including Hyundai of Canada, Hyundai do Brasil and Hyundai China.