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SONY DVD DISTRIBUTORS TO BUILD RUSSIA FACILITY
 
MOSCOW - Distributors of Sony Corp. DVDs have invested $1.5 million to build a DVD manufacturing plant in Russia.
 
Columbia and Tristar films in Russia are building the plant, which is set to open next February.
 
Licensed Sony DVDs sold in Russia are currently manufactured at an Austrian plant and retail for about $25, while pirated DVDs sell for as little as $7 to $14.

Russian-made licensed DVDs will retail for less than $20.

HYUNDAI TO EXPAND AUTO LINE-UP, EXTEND WARRANTY

FOUNTAIN VALLEY - Continuing its aggressive growth in the US, Hyundai Motor Co. will begin selling a small sport utility vehicle next fall to compete with popular models from the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co.

The new vehicle will be called the Tucson. It will be smaller than the company's other SUV, the Santa Fe. Hyundai also sells five cars in the US and plans to add three more new vehicles in the next three years.
 
Since selling 90,217 vehicles in the US in 1998, Hyundai has improved its business each year, a trend that analysts attribute to improved styling and quality.
 
So far this year, Hyundai has sold 337,862 vehicles in the US, a 4.4% increase from the same period in 2002. Sales for Detroit's Big Three automakers, on the other hand, are down a combined 4% so far this year.
 
The Tucson, a smaller, car-based SUV, will compete against vehicles such as Toyota's RAV4 and Honda's CR-V.

Hyundai, South Korea's largest automaker, hopes to sell 500,000 vehicles in the US by 2006 and 1 million by the end of the decade. Supporting that goal will be Hyundai's first US manufacturing plant in Montgomery, AL., which is scheduled to begin production in March, 2005.
 
When it reaches full capacity in 2007, the $1 billion plant will be able to produce 300,000 vehicles a year.
 
Through October, Hyundai's US market share was 2.4%, seventh among the major automakers. General Motors was tops at 27.7%, followed by Ford (19.6%), DaimlerChrysler (12.8%), Toyota (11.2%), Honda (8.2%), and Nissan (4.7%).
 
But with 400,000 sales expected this year, Hyundai has started to distance itself from established companies such as Mazda and Volkswagen. Mazda and VW claimed 1.5% and 1.8% of the US market respectively for the first 10 months of 2003.

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