POSCO Int'l to supply motor cores to Hyundai, Kia in Europe

POSCO International Corp. announced on Thursday that it has secured an order for 1.03 million units of motor cores, which will be featured electric vehicles (EV) locally produced by Hyundai Motor Group in Europe between 2025 and 2034.

The motor cores will be supplied through Hyundai Mobis' EV factory in Slovakia, with 550,000 units destined for the factory in Turkiye and 480,000 units for the factory in Slovakia, both run by Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. 

Over the past 15 months, POSCO International, along with its affiliate POSCO Mobility Solution, has signed contracts to supply a total of 11.87 million drive motor cores to Hyundai and Kia. This recent order is expected to boost plans for the construction of a local production plant in Poland.

The company established an investment corporation for the construction of a plant in Poland in June last year and has been pursuing the drive motor core business for the European market.

The new production facility in Poland is planned to be located in the city of Brzeg, near the southwestern border of Poland, providing favorable proximity to the sourcing needs of global automakers in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and other European countries.

The new plant is scheduled to be built on a site of 100,000 square meters, with groundbreaking in the first half of this year and completion targeted for the first half of 2025.

Upon the completion of the factory, POSCO International will have a system capable of producing and supplying 1.2 million drive motor cores annually in Europe until 2030.

POSCO International has been steadily establishing a global production network. At the end of last year, it completed a new factory with an annual production capacity of 900,000 units in Suzhou, China.

In October last year, it began construction of its first drive motor core plant in Mexico, with plans to consider the construction of a second plant in the first half of this year.

In addition, with the full operation of the Poland plant, POSCO International will have a global production system covering domestic locations such as Pohang and Cheonan, as well as Mexico, Poland, China, and India, completing a sales system capable of producing and selling over 7 million drive motor cores annually by 2030.

POSCO International aims to secure a market share of over 10% in the global market.

Write to Woo-Sub Kim at duter@hankyung.com