SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s Kia Corp shares rose to their highest in more than two decades on Wednesday after a local media report said the carmaker won a $ 4 trillion deal ($ 3.59 billion) with Apple Inc. will sign to build electric vehicles.
Shares in Kia, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co., jumped to 14.5%, reaching the highest since 1997 at 102,000 won.
The protest came after South Korea’s online newspaper DongA.com reported that Apple would invest $ 3.6 billion in Kia if they worked together to manufacture Apple’s electric vehicles at the Kia plant in Georgia, without using any resources. mention. According to the report, the agreement will be signed on February 17.
Apple will aim to produce 100,000 vehicles at the Kia plant annually by 2024, the report said, expanding the annual capacity to 400,000 at a later stage.
Apple and Hyundai declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Kia shares rose nearly 20% on January 20 after a media report said its parent company Hyundai Motor Group had decided that Kia would be the prospective partner with Apple over electric cars.
Kia said at the time that it was reviewing its collaboration on self-driving electric cars with several foreign companies, without mentioning the report linking it to a project with Apple.
Reuters reported last week that Hyundai Motor Group has ‘provisionally’ decided that it wants Kia to work with Apple, citing a Hyundai insider.
The shares in Hyundai Motor rose by 1.7%, while the subsidiaries Hyundai Mobis Co Ltd and Hyundai Glovis Co Ltd rose by 3.3% and 6.7% respectively from 0319 GMT, better than the 0.1% – increase in South Korea’s broader stock market KOSPI.
Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Edited by Ana Nicolaci da Costa