With three car manufacturers and almost 1.03 million cars produced in Slovakia in 2017, Slovakia is the world leader in per capita auto production for the fourth time in a row. Automotive production represents about 44% of Slovakia’s industrial production,13% of GDP and 35% of country’s industrial export. In 2017 there were over 340 Tier 1 and Tier 2 auto suppliers, providing parts and subassemblies to clients throughout Europe and beyond. The further development and localization of auto suppliers should decrease car component imports in the future from 60% to 40%. Automotive production directly employs 129,000 people, while the total number of people employed in the automotive industry is 250,000. Slovakia’s favorable geographic location includes proximity to 12 automobile manufacturing plants within the Slovak and Czech Republics, Poland and Hungary.
The allocation by manufacturer is:
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Volkswagen’s 13,700 local employees produced 361,776 cars.
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All three car manufacturers continuously expand their production and currently export primarily to the EU markets (mainly Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain), the U.S., and China. Exports to Russia have fallen due to the ongoing political situation, most severely impacting KIA Motors Slovakia, which will also be most affected by the Brexit. Exotic export markets include Taiwan, Near East, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Uruguay.
Summary
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slovakia
Market Entry
In order to survive in the big competition, it is necessary to have good quality people, enough financial resources and proper technologies to meet the changing trends (hybrid, electric, solar, hydrogen, and autonomous cars). Finding a good local partner and building person-to-person relationships in the Slovak market is the key to success.
The quickest way is to find a local distributor with an existing distribution network ready to expand his existing product portfolio with a new U.S. product. Local partners have unique knowledge of native culture and language, market nuances and price policy of the Slovak market. In most cases one distributor provides coverage throughout the entire country and in some cases reaches out to neighboring countries, particularly the Czech Republic. Larger U.S. firms might want to consider establishing joint venture manufacturing facilities in the Slovak Republic to provide high quality products Just-In-Time (JIT).