South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. and its sibling Kia Motors Corp. will provide connected car service to Europe next year by teaming up with the world’s second biggest telecommunication firm Vodafone.

The companies announced Tuesday that they signed a memorandum of understanding with Britain-based Vodafone at its headquarters in Newbury on Monday (local time) to cooperate in connected car service. They agreed to provide navigation system based on real-time traffic information, car burglar alarms and location information service. With the partnership with U.S.-based Nuance, they will also offer a voice recognition system supporting eight languages including English, French and German.

Kia will apply its connected car service named UVO to its upcoming vehicles scheduled to be released early next year. Hyundai also plans to launch its own Blue Link connected car service. The service will be first available in eight European countries including Britain, Germany, France and Spain, and then expanded to a wider market of 32 countries in Europe.

Vodafone, the Europe’s largest mobile carrier with 120 million-odd customers in Europe, runs mobile communication networks in 51 countries around the world.

The carmakers expect the partnership would enhance their brand image as a high-tech company in Europe. “We will be able to provide the cutting-edge services to European customers by using the largest network in Europe under the partnership,” said Suh Jung-sik, senior vice president of the ICT division at Hyundai Motor Group. “We will expand vehicles installed with the connected car service next year to allow more customers to experience the service.”

By Han Ye-kyung and Choi Mira

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