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Kia Motors has finally announced its eagerly awaited foray into the fast-growing car market in India. Kia has been hugely successful across the globe, particularly over the last few years and it has now ventured into India successfully too with its hit models like the Seltos, Carnival MPV and now the popular Sonet compact SUV. Kia is a part of the Hyundai Motor Group which also has its Genesis and Hyundai passenger car brands in its portfolio. This is cumulatively the 4^th biggest car manufacturer in the world after Toyota, General Motors and Volkswagen.

1. Kia is the oldest car manufacturer in South Korea and was established in 1944 as Kyungsung Precision Industry- a manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle components. It also made the first indigenous Korean bicycle named the Samchully in the year 1951.
2. It also started building Honda motorcycles under license in the year 1957 along with Mazda trucks under license in 1962. In 1974, this partnership with Mazda extended for covering cars as well. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kia also produced Fiats and Peugeots under licenses. Cars under its own brand only became mainstream nearer to 1990 when it made vehicles in collaboration with Ford and thereafter with Mazda which was controlled by Ford back then.
3. Kia entered the USA market back in the year 1992 when it set up Kia Motors America. The Sportage and Sephia were its earliest models in this market.
4. Ford attempted to scale up its minority stake in the company back in 1997 when Kia declared its bankruptcy amidst the biggest financial crisis in all of Asia. However, Ford’s bid was outstripped by Hyundai which bought the company in 1998, taking a 51% stake. Hyundai Motor Co. today has 33.88% stake although Kia is a subsidiary of the parent Hyundai Motor Group.
5. Kia witnessed a huge game-changing moment when focus increased for it throughout Europe and it hired former Audi designer Peter Schreyer as its head of design.
6. This led to the Tiger Nose design template leading to a huge increase in sale worldwide.
7. Schreyer was elevated towards overall design chief and became President of the Hyundai Group.

Kia is the sister brand at Hyundai although both brands have completely differentiated operations and compete in several segments with similar products. The entire Kia lineup shares its components and platforms with Hyundai models although there is no cross-badging or visible sharing of components across cars. The most popular Kia global products include the Optima, Sorento and Soul.

Source - Carandbike