Škoda produced its 14 millionth car – a Laurin & Klement Superb special edition – at its Kvasiny plant earlier this week. The milestone vehicle is for a German customer.
“This celebratory car is an impressive expression of our growth strategy,” said chairman Winfried Vahland. “We are expanding at a high speed. Almost two thirds of the 14m cars built by the company were produced and sold in the past 20 years, 4m of which were produced in the past five years alone.”
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Škoda plans to increase its worldwide sales to at least 1.5m units per year by 2018. The 2011 tally of 879,200 was a record.
The manufacturer is increasing capacity in Czech and overseas plants and focusing particularly on the emerging markets of China, Russia and India (it shares an assembly plant with parent VW in India).
At the end of 2012, the compact SUV Yeti will be produced in China by the Shanghai Volkswagen joint venture. Production of a new compact sedan will start in China at the beginning of 2013.
In Russia, a second production site following the (VW) original in Kaluga has been operating since 2011. Capacity is growing in India – with the new Rapid compact sedan (a variation of VW’s local Polo-based Vento saloon) having been built in Pune since 2011.
