Kia Worldwide Production Car/LCV By Nation : 2011-14

The Optima/K5 model 

Coming in at 9th is Kia, with 3.5% of worldwide production. Korea still accounts for 54% of that but it is down from 62% in 2011. Making over three quarters of your cars in Asia hardly sounds like a global car maker although a new plant will open in Mexico during 2016, with a capacity of 300,000 cars p.a.

Kia makes cars in four facilities in Korea, two in China and one each for the US and Slovakia. It assembles cars from kits in Ecuador, Iran, Malaysia, Russia and Vietnam. It was surprisingly difficult to put that list together, with conflicting information from different sources. Just as well they don't have more assembly operations.

11	12	13	14	Nation	2011	2012	2013	2014	%
1	1	1	1	Korea	1,557,233	1,558,355	1,416,879	1,603,155	54%
2	2	2	2	China	432,516	487,580	551,006	650,142	22%
3	3	3	3	USA	273,751	358,520	369,299	369,379	13%
4	4	4	4	Slovakia	252,252	292,050	313,000	323,720	11%
				Total	2,515,752	2,696,505	2,650,184	2,946,396	4%

Data source: OICA. 

Picture source: Netcarshow.