The Korea Herald

Jaguar bets on China to defray royalty payments

Jan 27, 2013

Jaguar Land Rover Plc, the luxury unit of India’s biggest automaker, is betting surging sales in China will help it defray royalty payments triggered by the company setting up factories outside the U.K. Jaguar is liable to pay royalties to Ford Motor Co., which sold the brands to Tata Motors Ltd. in 2008 for $2.5 billion, for use of the platform required to make its best-selling cars when manufactured outside the U.K., it said in a U.S. regulatory filing on Jan. 23. The unit of Mumbai-based Tata
Camry drives Toyota toward revival

Jan 27, 2013

Japanese car named 2013 Korea Car of the Year as Hyundai faces threats of rise of Toyota and weak yen
Kia sees fall in Q4 profit on stronger won

Jan 25, 2013

Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, said Friday that its 2012 earnings climbed 9.8 percent from a year earlier thanks to steady sales in overseas markets.Net profit reached 3.86 trillion won ($3.6 billion) last year, compared with 3.52 trillion won for a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.Sales rose 9.4 percent on-year to 47.2 trillion won in 2012, and operating profit also climbed 0.7 percent to 3.5 trillion won.For the fourth quarter of last year, Kia’s
Female vice president named GM Korea CFO

Jan 23, 2013

GM Korea Co., the local unit of U.S. General Motors Co., said Wednesday that a female vice president has been named its chief financial officer.Minerva Matibag, currently the CFO for GM’s Brazil unit, will also be in charge of finances for the firm’s operations in Vietnam and Uzbekistan, GM Korea said in a statement. The first woman CFO of GM Korea will start her job on Feb. 1, the company added.The Filipina started her financial career at GM’s Asia Pacific office in 1997 and went on to financia
Korean-brand cars sales jump in China this month

Jan 21, 2013

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Sales of South Korean-brand passenger cars soared more than 30 percent in the first half of January from a month earlier, partly thanks to weaker shipments of rival Japanese brands, a market report showed Monday.During the first two weeks of January, South Korean cars sold in China numbered 6,646 units, up 31 percent from the same period a month earlier, according to the report by investment bank JPMorgan. South Korean carmakers’ market share was estimated at around 13.
U.S. back-up camera rule to double auto LCD demand

Jan 20, 2013

Shipments of liquid crystal displays for use in cars will almost double by 2016 from 2012 levels, as an expected mandate in the U.S. for rear-view cameras in autos boosts demand, researcher IHS forecast. Deliveries of full-color LCDs used in autos will reach almost 117 million units by 2016, up 89 percent from 2012, El Segundo, California-based IHS said in a report dated Jan. 17. Each year sales will grow between 15 percent and 23 percent, with shipments crossing the hundred-million-unit mark in
The beauty within the beast

Jan 20, 2013

The Korea Herald, in cooperation with carmakers, offers test-driving experiences to executive officials at Korean or multinational companies here. The opinion below is the author’s own. For any inquiry into this column, please contact jylee@heraldcorp.com. ― Ed.If you perceive driving in big cities as negotiating an asphalt jungle, the BMW X5 is definitively the king of beasts.Snow, ice and subzero temperatures are weather conditions utterly foreign to my Caribbean background, where the elements
Mercedes-Benz, BMW getting on front-wheel-drive path

Jan 20, 2013

For decades, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have made rear-wheel drive central to their definitions of performance and luxury, even as the rest of the industry embraced front-wheel drive long ago.But both German marques, among the last holdouts, are about to cave.Just before the Detroit auto show last week, Mercedes-Benz showed off the CLA 250, a compact, four-door coupe, the first front-wheel-drive car bearing the brand’s three-pointed star logo. BMW also said at the show that it plans to offer front-wh
Korean recipe for smallest Chevy

Jan 20, 2013

Korean-flavored Chevrolet Spark appeals to non-GM customers in U.S.
Super hero-themed vehicles promote fighting hunger

Jan 16, 2013

Two super hero-themed vehicles at the auto show in Detroit are there for more than just their flashy looks.The Batman-decorated Kia Optima and the Green Lantern-wrapped Kia Soul are at the South Korean automaker‘s exhibit to promote an effort to fight hunger in Africa. Features include Batman symbols inside and outside on the Optima, and the Green Lantern’s symbol on the Soul‘s wheels.The vehicles were created as part of a partnership involving DC Entertainment. The ``We Can Be Heroes’‘ effort i
Mercedes-Benz recalls 425 cars for defective air hose

Jan 14, 2013

Mercedes-Benz Korea is recalling over 400 diesel vehicles in South Korea for a defective air hose that could crack, causing the vehicle’s engine to stop operation, the Transportation Ministry said Monday.The recall affects 181 units of the C220 CDI and 244 units of the E220 CDI, both produced between Aug. 20, 2011 and Dec. 12, 2011, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.The ministry said the vehicles’ air intake hose may crack, which could limit the engine’s output or
Honda to cut 800 U.K. jobs as European car market shrinks

Jan 13, 2013

Honda Motor Co., Japan’s second-largest carmaker by market value, said it will eliminate as many as 800 jobs in the U.K. this year as the European auto market may shrink for the sixth year in a row. The manufacturer will start talks with labor representatives for the cutbacks, which it plans to implement by about the second quarter, Tokyo-based Honda said today in an emailed statement. The company’s plant in Swindon, England, has a workforce of 3,500 people, said Fiona Cole, a spokeswoman. “Thes
Playing on home field

Jan 13, 2013

Slackening overseas sales force Hyundai-Kia to turn homeward
Hyundai-Kia emerges as biggest exporter to Germany: VDIK

Jan 13, 2013

South Korea's Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group emerged as the biggest exporter of automobiles to Germany last year, industry data showed Sunday. Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. have sold 155,673 units in the biggest European market in 2012, according to data by the International Association of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (VDIK). Renault SA came second with 150,740 units and Skoda third with 142,611 units last year. Hyundai-Kia was third with 128,931 units in 2011, when Ren
Imported car sales jump 24.6% in 2012

Jan 7, 2013

Sales of imported cars in South Korea jumped 24.6 percent on-year to a record high last year as foreign brand vehicles have successfully made their presence felt in the country, a trade association said Monday.A total of 130,858 foreign-made cars were sold in 2012, compared with 105,037 units tallied a year ago, topping the 130,000 mark for the first time, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association. Its earlier sales target for last year was 120,000 units.The sales