Hyundai-Kia is now the world’s fifth largest car maker beating Japanese giants Honda, Nissan in the process. In the past two decades the company has moved from being a manufacturer of cheap poor quality cars to a serious player in the world automobile industry that makes world class cars that equal or even better the more established brands in reliability, performance and price. Hyundai-Kia automotive was formed by merging  Hyundai Motor company and Kia Motors, Korea’s second largest car company at that time.

Hyundai-Kia sold a total of 3,961,629 vehicles in 2007 earning itself 5th place in the global list outselling Honda, Chrysler and Nissan. The koren giant has jumped six places in the past eight years as it was ranked eleventh largest in 1999 which shows growing acceptance of Hyundai as a brand among the car buying public. The company now builds cars in United States, China, India, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Russia and Brazil owing to agressive expansion plans. The huge improvements in quality and reliability of its cars have helped push it into top 5 makers now. And justifiably Hyundai should be proud.

Worldwide Sales for the year 2007

1. Toyota - 9,366,000

2. General Motors - 8,902,252

3. Volkswagen - 6,191,618,

4. Ford - 5,964,000

5. Hyundai-Kia - 3,961,629

6. Honda - 3,831,000

7. Nissan - 3,675,574

8. PSA (Peugeot/Citroën) - 3,428,400

9. Chrysler - 2,676,268

10. Fiat - 2,620,864