Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s two largest carmakers, spent 3.09 trillion won (US$2.97 billion) on research and development in 2013, corporate and audit reports.
[ads id=”0″ style=”float:left;padding:9px;”]The two carmakers, flagships of the world’s fifth-largest automotive conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group, sold over 7.5 million cars worldwide last year. Hyundai Motor’s R&D of 1.85 trillion won was equal to 2.1 percent of its sales earnings, while Kia’s spending stood at 2.6 percent or around 1.24 trillion won.
The numbers represent a 0.2 percentage point increase for Hyundai and a 0.4 percentage point increase for Kia. For 2014, Hyundai and Kia said they will invest approximately 4.08 trillion won in development, and to set up and update assembly lines for new cars.
Of the total, Hyundai’s investments will reach a little over 3.01 trillion won with 684.6 billion won to be used abroad. The carmaker’s operations in the United States and India will get 238 billion won and 229.5 billion won, respectively, with Turkey being allocated slightly more than 100 billion won.
For Kia, 1.07 trillion won has been earmarked for R&D and infrastructure building this year. Of this, 802.1 billion won will be injected to strengthen domestic operations, while its plants in the U.S. and Slovakia will get 190.1 billion won and 79.2 billion won.
