Skoda is celebrating these days 25 years of Volkswagen ownership. The contract was signed back in 1991. At that time Volkswagen acquired a 31% stake in Skoda for 620 million Deutschmarks.
The investment was a risky one judging by the fact that Skoda had only two cars in its lineup and it was producing only 200,000 cars per year. But after years it seems to be a profitable company. Now Skoda is producing over 1 million vehicles per year and it can be ordered in more than 100 markets.
As you can imagine, the success didn’t happen overnight. The German group invested about 12,2 billion USD into Skoda since 1991 and gradually increased its stake in the automaker. The final sold was made in 2000.
In 2014 Skoda generated 4.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. More than that, the car manufacturer was responsible for nearly 8 percent of all Czech exports. And these are pretty impressive values.
“In the last 25 years, Skoda has developed from a regional brand into an internationally successful car manufacturer. The decisive factors in that were the acquisition through Volkswagen Group a quarter of a century ago and the professional cooperation between Skoda and Volkswagen", said Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier.
Source: Skoda
