Kia 2012 Annual Report Download - page 9

Hyoung-Keun Lee
Vice Chairman
Dear distinguished shareholders,
I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all of our share
holders for extending their tireless support and encouragement
in 2012.
Having recorded all-time best performance every year since the
turnaround in 2008, Kia Motors once again achieved best-ever
results in 2012. Thanks to the passion and challenging spirit of all
our staff, we achieved excellent performance despite the difficult
economic conditions last year. New growth engines for the
future were put in place under our mid-to long-term strategy –
“Kia Vision 2016” – based on the motto “innovation in customer
value.”
To this end, we have improved production capacity at all our
plants around the world by introducing seamless horizontal
exchanges between domestic and overseas factories. In other
words, productivity and quality competitiveness have steadily
improved through knowledge-sharing between our various
operations, while our capability to manage our global network of
plants has been strengthened.
Meanwhile, the Kia brand has been enhanced with the launch
of the flagship Kia Quoris (K9) luxury sedan, while the new
Cerato/Forte (K3) saw a successful landing in the competitive
compact car market, thereby continuing the K-series’ reputation
of excellence. In the domestic market, new programs have been
continuously rolled-out to make Kia’s sales and service hubs
more sophisticated and larger in scale, with ‘Smart Q Service’
and other programs offered for superior customer convenience.
In overseas markets, we are continuing to boost our global
reputation through ‘K-DEP’, a program aimed at improving the
competency of overseas Kia dealers.
Moreover, the Rio (Pride) won all of the world’s top three design
awards – the red dot Design Award, iF Design Award, and IDEA –
while the mobile application for the Rio earned the ‘Best of the
Best’ award in the Communication Design category of the red
dot Design Award. All these feats have reaffirmed Kia Motor’s
competitiveness in design, not only in terms of product but also
in how we interact with our customers.
Equipped with a new brand identity system in 2012, Kia Motors
has unfolded a variety of marketing activities at home and
abroad, enhancing communication with customers as well as
our corporate prestige. As a result, our brand value reached
USD 4.1 billion, up 50% from the previous year. This is a historic
achievement for Kia Motors, as we joined the top 100 global
brands for the first time in our corporate history.
Driven by these outstanding achievements, we sold a total
of 2.72 million units in the domestic and overseas markets,
achieving revenues of KRW 47,242.9 billion, operating income of
KRW 3,522.3 billion, and net income of KRW 3,864.7 billion.
All the results we achieved last year can be attributed to your
encouragement and support, and I sincerely thank you once
again.
Distinguished shareholders,
The management environment we confront today is ever-more
challenging. We are still not out of the shadow of the global
economic slowdown, and global demand for automobiles is
expected to remain sluggish as competition among automobile
manufacturers is intensifying. Adding to this are protective trade
measures in some countries as well as the strong Korean won
and weak Japanese yen.
Nevertheless, we will overcome these obstacles with strong
commitment to turn them into opportunities for even further
growth. To this end, we have earmarked 2013 as the “year to
secure global competitiveness through qualitative growth.”
Accordingly, unsparing efforts will be made to achieve our goals
of systematizing customer-centric management, establishing a
high-efficiency, high-profit management system, and securing
new growth potential for the future.
We will continue to provide Kia’s unique customer value through
continuous innovation at our sales and production sites. We
will strengthen our global competitiveness by developing new
customer-centric sales and service programs, conducting
consistent marketing activities, and initiating quality innovation
at all production sites.
We also plan to secure a firm basis for management to maintain
profitability under any circumstances through the sales
expansion of the K- and R-series, stronger production cost
competitiveness for each car type, and efficient and systematic
investment management. Moreover, productivity will be
enhanced and a new corporate culture will be established
through the successful launch of a two-shift work system this
year, which will further contribute to sustainable success.
Meanwhile, new growth engines will be created as we establish
strategies to expand sales in new markets with high growth
potential, and develop strategic cars accordingly. Moreover,
we will solidify our reputation as a global corporate citizen by
expanding and developing our worldwide social contribution
activities.
Through all of these endeavors, we will achieve our target of
producing and selling 2.75 million units this year.
Distinguished shareholders,
2013 will be one of the most significant years for Kia Motors as
it will be a starting point to build on our core competencies and
become a truly world-class global automaker, producing and
selling over three million units annually.
We will do the utmost to return your steadfast support by
working tirelessly toward achieving our targets in 2013.
I ask for your continued consideration and encouragement, and
wish you and your family good health and happiness.
Thank you.

