Invading France

 

Hyundai Mobis is accelerating its market invasion of Europe. After putting efforts in for five years, the company has recently signed its first-ever contract to supply parts to PSA Peugeot Citroen, the leading automaker in France. With this, the company is expanding its dominance in the European market.

Hyundai Mobis announced on Aug. 30 that it has concluded a 22 billion won (US$18.49 million) deal for the supply of integrated switching modules (ICS) for a model of Peugeot that PSA will begin mass-producing in 2017.

An ICS controls a vehicle’s multimedia functions and its air conditioning system. As the multimedia functions of cars are evolving, ICS is becoming more important. In particular, it is a high-value product, which is manufactured by only a few leading companies in the world. Hyundai Mobis is the only producer in Korea.

With the contract, Hyundai Mobis has expanded its customer base in Europe from Germany’s BMW and Volkswagen to France.

Hyundai Mobis plans to manufacture the ICS products at a Chinese factory in Tianjin and ship them to PSA’s factories in France. The deal is the fruit of Hyundai Mobis’ efforts from 2010.

Meanwhile, the company is steadily increasing actual exports to overseas automakers. Hyundai Mobis is spreading broad order activities for products like ICS, intelligent battery sensors (IBS), lamps, and large-scale modules. Indeed, the actual exports of Hyundai Mobis increased from US$1.82 billion (2.17 trillion won) in 2011 to US$2.83 billion (3.37 trillion won) last year, showing a rise of US$1 billion (1.19 trillion won), or 55.5 percent, in three years.

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