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Mitsubisihi
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Partnership Mitsubishi holds equity in : 
  • Hyundai (Korea) - 4.1 %
  • Proton (Malaysia) - 8.03 %
    • Introduction The Mitsubishi group is probably the largest enterprise in Japan and has great influence to the domestic economy. Automobile production is just one of its variety of business. Despite of its strong background, its inflexible management (still loyal to life-time employment) has been proved fail to overcome the economic recession and recorded heavy loss in 1998. Production dropped by 12.5% in the year. While the commercial vehicle division has made an alliance with Volvo trucks to form the largest company of its kind, the car division failed to find global partners. The joint venture with Chrysler (i.e., Diamond Star) is now running solely by itself as Chrysler pulled out several years ago. The Ned Car, a joint venture with Volvo and Holland government to produce S40 and Carisma, is nearly certain to lose Volvo s continuous support soon. 

    Therefore the Japanese car maker has made a revival plan aiming to cut cost by 15% in 2001. That will be implemented by reducing the no. of platforms from 13 to 6 and cutting heads by voluntary retirement. The company is also selling its GDI technology to other car makers and offering its SUV for Fiat. However, the problem is : Mitsubishi still thought it is a big car maker, thus offers a full range of cars, from K-car to luxurious car, but most of the products are just average. Without changing this policy, the revival plan is unlikely to succeed. 

    Mitsubishi `s involvement in Hyundai and Proton (it helped establishing them) could secure an alliance, but this Asian alliance would not benefit each other as their products and images overlap. 
     

    Sales figure 1998 fiscal year production : 1,686,000 cars, trucks and bus. One-third of which were produced overseas.
    Location Head office : Tokyo. 
    R&D center : Nakashinkiri 
    Plants in Japan : Nagoya-Oye, Nagoya-Okazaki, Mizushima, Kyoto, Kyoto-Shiga. 
    Plant in US : Bloomington, Illinois. 
    A joint venture plant with Volvo in Netherlands (Ned Car).
    Brief History Mitsubishi group was founded in the early 1870s by Yataro Iwasaki as a shipping company. It grew quickly and diversified its business. Before the broke out of WWII, it had already became one of the biggest firms in Japan. Many warships, tanks and military planes, e.g. the Zero-fighter, were the work of the group.  

    After the war, it produced 3-wheel mini trucks to meet the demand for the rebuilding Japanese society. When the country `s economy took off in the 60 `s, it began producing cars. It wasn `t the earliest Japanese car makers, but it grew rapidly and became independent of the group in 1970. By the 80 `s, it had a full range of cars to compete with Toyota and Nissan. 

    Like other Japanese car makers, it went West in the 80 `s. A joint venture with Chrysler in Illinois called Diamond Star was established in 1988. The factory produced Galant, Eclipse, 3000GT and their Chrysler-badged versions until the American car makers sold its stakes in the mid-90s. In 1995, it partnered with Volvo and the Netherlands government to set up Ned Car in Holland, which produced Carisma and S40 for supplying Europe. 

    In both 1996 and 1997, Mitsubishi works driver Tommi Makinen won them the WRC Driver's Championship.