Kia Motors Corp., South Korea's second-largest automaker, said Monday the company's Chinese venture has rolled out its 1 millionth car, eight years after starting production in China.
Dongfeng Yueda Kia Automobile Co., a joint venture between Kia and its Chinese partners, Dongfeng Motor Corp. and Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., reached the landmark as of June 30, according to the South Korean carmaker.
The joint venture, which was set up in 2002, has been producing Kia brand cars such as Optima, Carnival and Cerato for sale in China at its two
factories in Yancheng, a city in the east coast province of Jiangsu.
The joint venture has been posting rapid growth in production. It took three years for the company to turn out the first 200,000 units, but it produced the last 200,000 vehicles in just seven months.
For all of 2009, the joint venture sold 240,000 units, up 70 percent from a year earlier, and its sales jumped 95 percent on-year to 35,800 units in the first five months of this year.
Kia said it will begin producing its latest K5 sedan in China next year in an apparent effort to introduce its latest model to the quickly growing
market.
Together with its larger affiliate, Hyundai Motor Co., Kia is pushing deeper into China as the country has become the world's largest automobile market. Last year, China posted new car sales of 13.6 million units, followed by the United States with some 10.4 million vehicles.
"China is becoming the most important market that could decide the very fate of Hyundai and Kia," Chung Mong-koo, head of the two automakers, said during a visit to the Yancheng factory earlier this year.
The China ventures of Hyundai and Kia together sold over 800,000 cars in China last year and are seeking to sell over 1 million vehicles there this year.
Hyundai Motor operates two auto production plants in China with an annual capacity of 600,000 cars and is considering building a third plant there.