Kumho Tyres’ Big Match Day to be held at Old Trafford

Kumho Tyres, Korea’s leading performance tyre maker and a platinum sponsor of Manchester United (MU), today announced that their Kumho Tyres’ Big Match Day for MU will be held at 17:15 on March 29, 2008, when the Reds take on Aston Villa at Old Trafford. On their Big Match Day, Kumho Tyres will offer interactive experiences and event zones at promotional booths outside the stadium as well as hospitality programmes for dealers and distributors invited to the match.

“Kumho Tyres takes great pride in its association with one of world’s most distinguished football clubs,” said Mr HS Lee, President of Kumho Tyre Europe Gmbh. “Manchester United is legendary for its performance in demanding situations, and this is also our philosophy in designing our products. With this high-profile sponsorship, we hope to improve Kumho Tyres’ brand awareness across Europe, which is an essential market for us to achieve our goal of becoming a global top five tyre maker by 2015.”

Kumho Tyres’ sponsorship of the renowned football club began in January 2007. With its four-year sponsorship, the company owns the right to advertise on the pitch-side digital boards at Old Trafford, to expose the brand on the backdrops used during media interviews at home matches, to use the club crest within promotional and company materials, to have links within Manchester United’s official website and to use related images and logos.

Kumho Tyres has been providing products of superior performance, quality and safety since its inception in 1960. Recently, the performance and quality of Kumho products were recognised by two of Europe's top motoring magazines – Germany's ADAC motorwelt and the Russian publication Za Rulem – itreceived very high marks and was declared ‘Very Recommendable’ and ‘No. 1’ in these independent tyre tests. In addition to supplying its products to Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz A-Class, Chrysler and Volkswagen, the company began providing tyres for the new Mercedes-Benz Viano X-Clusive in March 2008. The company is also a leading supplier of tyres for F3 racing, including the Masters of F3 and F3 Euro series. Moreover, the Binnie Motorsport team supported by Kumho Tyres won the LMP2 class in the 2007 24-Hours of Le Mans and Kumho was victorious in Japan’s Super GT 300 Class in August 2006, demonstrating the excellent performance and superb durability of Kumho products.

Kumho Tyres has eight subsidiaries and 15 branches and offices, each dedicated to providing the best quality tyres to its customers in 180 countries worldwide. The company operates four R&D centres - Gwangju, Korea; Tianjin, China; Akron, United States; and Birmingham, UK – as well as seven manufacturing facilities worldwide, collectively producing 56 million tyres annually. Three plants are located in Korea, three in China and one in Vietnam. Kumho Tyres also plans to start building its eighth plant in Georgia, US, in the first half of 2008.

The company expects to achieve a total of over $½ billion worth of sales in Europe in 2008, including a 25 per cent increase in sales of its premium ultra high performance (UHP) tyres.

For further information on Kumho and its products log onto kumhotyre.co.uk.