CEO Letter to Shareholders

58th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders

March 2026

Dear Respected Shareholders,

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the entire Hyundai Motor Company team, thank you for your continued confidence in the growth and transformation of our company. As we convene our 58th Annual General Meeting, I am proud to report on a year of exceptional performance and to share the vision that will guide us forward.

In my second year as CEO, I want to begin with a simple message: we are executing our plan. One year ago, I outlined five strategic priorities for 2025. Today, I can report that we delivered on every one of them, and in several cases, exceeded our own ambitions. This is a testament to the dedication of our 120,000 employees worldwide and to the trust you have placed in us.

Hyundai delivers stylish, attainable vehicles with the convenience, technology and safety features customers want. It’s this combination of attributes that is powering our growth.

Delivering on Our Promises: 2025 in Review

Last year, the company sold 4.1 million vehicles worldwide while the annual revenue reached a record-high of KRW 186.3 trillion, up 6.3 percent year over year.

In 2025, annual operating profit totaled KRW 11.47 trillion, down 19.5 percent year over year, due to the global trade uncertainties including tariff impacts. Operating profit margin stood at 6.2 percent, while annual net profit amounted to KRW 10.36 trillion.

Thanks to the support of our teams, our dealers and so many others, Hyundai Motor Group now ranks number three in global sales volume and number two in profitability, among automakers.

In Korea, full-year sales volume increased 1.1 percent year-over-year, driven by successful new model launches. This solid performance underscores sustained customer demand and the strength of the company's refreshed product portfolio.

Hyundai Motor achieved a historic milestone in the U.S., recording its first-ever one million units in annual wholesale, driven by a robust SUV portfolio and accelerating hybrid electric vehicle sales. Our record performance reinforces the company's strengthened market position and competitive brand standing in North America.

Our electrification momentum accelerated significantly. Global electrified vehicle sales approached 1 million units, with hybrid sales surging 28 percent and EV sales growing 26 percent. In the United States, electrified vehicles accounted for 26 percent of our retail mix — a powerful validation of our multi-powertrain strategy that gives customers the freedom to choose the right powertrain for their needs.

Genesis continued its remarkable trajectory, delivering over 222,000 vehicles globally and achieving best-ever results in the United States with 82,225 units. Just nine years after entering the U.S. market, Genesis is firmly established as one of the fastest-growing luxury brands in the world. The GV80 Coupe delivered exceptional growth of 148 percent in its second year.

On the credit front, we maintained our “A” ratings from all three major credit rating agencies, reflecting the financial soundness and competitive strength that underpins everything we do.

Quality and Safety: The Foundation of Everything We Do

Sales records and market share mean nothing if we do not deliver on quality and safety. These are not simply metrics; they are the promise we make to every family that chooses a Hyundai or Genesis vehicle. We continuously monitor quality and safety information from markets around the world and when we identify a potential issue, we address it with discipline and transparency.

In 2025, Hyundai Motor Group secured 21 IIHS Top Safety Pick and Top Safety Pick+ awards, the most of any automotive group in the world, for the second consecutive year. Ten of those awards went to Hyundai brand vehicles alone, including Top Safety Pick+ recognition for the IONIQ 9, Santa Fe, Elantra, Sonata, Kona, IONIQ 6, IONIQ 5, and Tucson.

Our quality improvements have been equally decisive. Among mainstream brands in the United States, Hyundai rose from 12th place in the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study in 2022 to 2nd place in 2025. In Consumer Reports’ Overall Score ranking, we improved from 7th to 4th among mass market brands over the same period. These are not incremental gains – they reflect a fundamental commitment to quality across our entire organization.

Investing for the Future

In 2025, we made the most consequential investment commitments in our company’s history.

Hyundai Motor Group announced a KRW 125 trillion investment in South Korea over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030 — our largest-ever domestic commitment, representing a more than 40 percent increase from the prior five-year period. Of this total, KRW 50.5 trillion is directed toward future business investments, including AI-powered autonomous driving, robotics, electrification, software-defined vehicles, and hydrogen energy. An additional KRW 38.5 trillion supports research and development, and KRW 36.2 trillion will optimize our production infrastructure.

In the United States, we committed $26 billion from 2025 to 2028, an amount that exceeds our total cumulative U.S. investment since we entered the market in 1986. This includes $12 billion to expand annual U.S. production capacity to 1.2 million vehicles, $7 billion to strengthen our parts and logistics supply chain, including a new steel mill in Louisiana, and $7 billion to advance autonomous driving, robotics, AI, and other future technologies.

A highlight of 2025 was the Grand Opening of Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) in Georgia, the largest economic development project in the state’s history. HMGMA is already producing the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 9 and will add hybrid production this year. We are also validating IONIQ 5s fitted with Waymo’s autonomous driving technology, which are being built at this facility. We’re looking forward to seeing them in operation soon.

A New Chapter: From Automaker to High-Tech Mobility Company

Over the past year, three developments have fundamentally shifted how the world sees Hyundai Motor Company.

The NVIDIA-Samsung-Hyundai Partnership. In October, our Executive Chair joined NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee for what has become known around the world as the “Kkanbu Summit.” NVIDIA subsequently announced it would supply over 260,000 advanced GPUs to Korean companies including Hyundai and committed to collaborate on physical AI technologies — autonomous vehicles, robotics, and AI-enhanced manufacturing. This partnership positions Hyundai at the epicenter of the global AI revolution.

World-Class Technology Leadership. We appointed Manfred Harrer as head of our R&D Division and recruited Dr. Minwoo Park, who previously led autonomous driving technology development at both NVIDIA and Tesla, as Head of our Advanced Vehicle Platform Division and CEO of 42dot. These appointments complete a world-class leadership structure for future mobility technology development.

The Robotics Breakthrough. At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, we unveiled our Group-level AI Robotics Strategy under the theme “Partnering Human Progress,” which emphasizes that robotics are designed to augment how our people work, not replace them. Boston Dynamics brought its next-generation Atlas humanoid robot out of the lab and onto the stage for the first time. We announced plans to begin deploying Atlas in our manufacturing facilities, starting at HMGMA in Georgia, and to establish a production system capable of manufacturing 30,000 robots annually by 2028. We are partnering with Google DeepMind to accelerate AI development for next-generation robotics.

The effect of these efforts has been broad and measurable. Analysts are no longer evaluating Hyundai solely as an automaker; they are increasingly recognizing us as a high-tech mobility company with leadership positions in vehicles, robotics, autonomous driving, and AI. Since CES, this reassessment has been reflected in stronger investor sentiment as well, with our market capitalization increasing by more than 120 percent and briefly surpassing KRW 100 trillion for the first time in our history.

Navigating Uncertainty with Confidence

The global trade environment remains volatile. Tariff pressures, foreign exchange fluctuations, and geopolitical tensions require constant vigilance and agile decision-making. Competition is intensifying, particularly from Chinese OEMs expanding into global markets.

Energy markets are uncertain as well, with price shocks and supply constraints reinforcing that energy is not just an input cost, but a strategic variable for consumers and for our industry. That reality strengthens the case for a diversified approach to powertrains and for continued focus on efficiency, flexibility, and affordability.

As I said last year: all OEMs face the same environment. What separates leaders from followers is how they respond. We have responded by localizing production, diversifying our supply chains, adjusting powertrain offerings flexibly, and investing aggressively in the markets where we compete. Our investment commitments are not defensive measures – they are offensive strategies designed to create competitive advantage through uncertainty. Our founder, Ju-yung Chung, famously viewed uncertainties as opportunities to expand our business. We carry that spirit forward.

Following the U.S.-Korea trade agreement that reduced tariffs on Korean automobiles from 25 percent to 15 percent, we committed to supporting our tier-one suppliers by covering their U.S. tariff costs for 2025, and we are developing new programs to strengthen our smaller suppliers’ global competitiveness. This is our “One Team” approach in practice, supporting our suppliers through near-term cost pressure while building programs to strengthen their long-term capabilities.

Our Priorities for 2026

Even as we manage near-term volatility, the industry is being reshaped by longer-term forces that will define the next decade of mobility. Around the world, production and supply networks are being reorganized around proximity, resilience, and speed, with companies expected to deliver more for customers closer to where they live. At the same time, customer demand is diverging more sharply by region, with different mixes of powertrains, price points, and vehicle types winning in different markets, and expectations rising for quality, safety, and value. Finally, technology is becoming the primary source of differentiation as software, autonomy, and AI-enabled manufacturing change how vehicles are developed, built, and improved throughout their lifetimes. Building on the foundation we established last year, our priorities for 2026 sharpen around these three imperatives.

First: Execute and expand our localization strategy. With HMGMA ramping up, hybrid production being added to our U.S. manufacturing footprint, and new production bases planned in India, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, we will produce more vehicles closer to where our customers live. We will expand our global annual production capacity by 1.2 million units by 2030.

Second: Launch a global product offensive that meets customers where they are. We do not believe in one-size-fits-all to consumer preferences. Each region has unique customer needs, and our job is to meet them with the right products, built locally, designed for their roads and their lives.

In Korea, IONIQ 9, Sonata, and updated IONIQ 6 have driven strong performance, and this year we are launching the all-new Tucson compact SUV and all-new Elantra sedan. In China, we are launching 20 new models over the next five years under our “In China, For China, To Global” strategy, with a goal of 500,000 annual sales. In North America, we will introduce Extended Range Electric Vehicles with more than 600 miles of range beginning in 2027, followed by our first body-on-frame mid-size pickup truck before 2030. In Europe, we are launching five new models over the next 18 months, including the IONIQ 3 world premiere at Milan Design Week this April; by 2027, every Hyundai model sold in Europe will have an electrified version. In India, we will launch 26 new vehicles by 2030 and India’s first locally designed, engineered, and manufactured electric SUV by 2027, backed by a $5 billion investment through 2030.

Genesis celebrated its 10th anniversary last year and has reached one million cumulative sales faster than any other luxury brand. This year, Genesis is launching the high-performance Magma GV60, competing in the World Endurance Championship including 24 Hours of Le Mans through Genesis Magma Racing, and launching an all-new flagship SUV.

Three Hyundai vehicles are finalists for the prestigious 2026 World Car of the Year Awards, which will be announced April 1.

Third: Accelerate our transformation into a technology company.

On the software side, we will further strengthen our Pleos technology platform and accelerate autonomous driving development as a core element of that platform. Our collaboration with NVIDIA, our investments in 42dot and Motional, our partnership with Waymo, and our commitment to building an AI data center in Korea are all part of our efforts to lead in the most consequential technology race of our era.

On the robotics side, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas is among the most advanced humanoid robots in the world. We will move from demonstration to deployment, integrating Atlas into our manufacturing operations and building the infrastructure to scale to 30,000 robots annually by 2028. Our partnership with Google DeepMind, combined with NVIDIA’s physical AI infrastructure, gives us a technological ecosystem that is unmatched in the automotive industry. Taken together, these efforts show that Hyundai’s future will not be limited to manufacturing cars. We will also develop the intelligence that transforms how our vehicles are made and how they operate. 

Shareholder Returns and Corporate Value 

Our commitment to shareholder returns remains unwavering. Our annual dividend for 2025 was KRW 10,000 per share and we will continue to implement a transparent and clear shareholder return policy. We are executing on the targets we communicated, and we will continue to create channels, including new model launch events and our CEO Investor Day, to actively share our vision, performance, and strategy with the investment community.

Looking Ahead

The Hyundai Motor Company you invested in is transforming before your eyes. We are still the company that sells over 4 million vehicles a year, that sets sales records in the most competitive market in the world, and that honors the Korean tradition of treating every customer as son-nim honored guests. But we are becoming something more.

We are becoming a company where AI robots work alongside our people in smart factories, where our vehicles think and drive themselves, and where the boundaries between automobile, technology, and intelligence are dissolving.

As our executive chair often says, our DNA has always been about confronting challenges tenaciously and turning them into opportunities. That spirit — what I call PM², or Ppalli Ppalli, Mirri Mirri, squared: moving quickly and thinking ahead — has helped us achieve our current success and will guide us as we realize our 2030 ambitions.

I ask for your continued interest and support, and I sincerely wish you and your families a happy and prosperous year.

With gratitude and respect,