Kia is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer. Its headquarter is in Seoul. It is South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer. And it is the fifth-largest automaker in the world. Today, it is a worldwide force in the automotive industry. And it is now manufacturing vehicles in the US. Kia globally sold more than 2.77 million vehicles in 2021. It also offers OEM parts and accessories. Its OEM Kia parts are serviced globally through a dealer network. There are more than 3,000 distributors and dealers worldwide. It has more than 50,000 employees to offer more details to customers. It has many kinds of models, genuine OEM parts, and accessories online. Its best-selling models are all traded for more than one hundred thousand. Its OEM parts are one of the leading Asian car brands.
Kia has a long history of making cars. From the 1940s to the 1980s, Kia was founded on June 9, 1944, it was known as Kyungsung Precision Industry formerly. It began to produce steel tubing and bicycle parts. And it produced Korea's first domestic bicycle in 1951. Kyungsung changed its name to Kia in 1952. And later it built small motorcycles, trucks, and cars. However, because of consolidation, the corporation was forced to give up passenger cars. And then it began to focus on light trucks.
From the 1980s to the 2000s, the corporation built a small range of cars until 1981. Starting in 1986, Kia rejoined the automobile industry in partnership. In 1992, Kia Motors America was incorporated. The first Kia vehicle in the United States was sold in Portland, Oregon, in 1992. Since then, it expanded one region at a time. A few years later, the United States segment expanded its line with the Sportage. By 1995, over one hundred dealerships existed across thirty states. And all these dealers sold a record 24,740 automobiles. In 1997, due to the financial crisis in Korea, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Korean government ordered Hyundai to purchase the corporation. And in 2000, the integrated group was established. The group consists of Kia and many other core companies.
Now, Kia focuses on sustainable and environmentally friendly mobility solutions. It prepared to realize 4 million sales worldwide by 2030. Among them, about 1.2 million will be pure electric models. Another great improvement is its intelligent network connection. The specific central integration is to achieve a flexible interconnection. The next step should be to build the cloud. And it will prepare for all interconnection by 2025.