Swedish football legend Zlatan Ibrahimović visits Volvo Cars
Swedish football legend Zlatan Ibrahimović visited the Volvo grounds in Torslanda today, in what was one of the most prominent company visits in the history of Volvo Cars.
The Manchester United striker, known for his involvement in several successful Volvo Cars marketing campaigns, took a tour around the Torslanda manufacturing plant and witnessed first-hand the production of Volvo’s brand new 90 and 60 Series cars.
Mr Ibrahimović, known as simply Zlatan to football fans around world, also spent considerable time meeting with employees from around the company, taking photos and signing autographs.
Earlier in the day, he received an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at upcoming Volvo models and technologies at the company’s high-security design center.
During Zlatan’s visit, Volvo Cars and the Swedish Football Association (SvFF) also announced a joint collaboration for a new grant called Number 10, after the striker’s current squad number. With Zlatan acting as spokesperson and frontman, the aim of Number 10 is to support people working to promote Swedish football and values such as equality, diversity and teamwork. More details will follow later this week.
The collaboration between Volvo Cars and Zlatan Ibrahimović started in 2014 with a marketing campaign for the XC70 crossover, in which Zlatan reimagined the Swedish national anthem together with producer Max Martin against a backdrop of the Swedish outdoors. The impact of the campaign was so strong that sales of the XC70 grew markedly during its last years of production, a highly unusual feat.
In 2016 Volvo and Zlatan teamed up again, this time to launch Volvo’s brand new V90 large premium estate in the EMEA region. World-renowned film music composer Hans Zimmer wrote the music, while the campaign once again focused on Volvo’s and Zlatan’s Swedish heritage.
It described how Zlatan’s career took him from growing up in the tough Malmö neighbourhood of Rosengård to international football success, all the way to Zlatan’s emotional farewell to the national football team. The V90 quickly became one of Volvo’s most popular models in EMEA.
Zlatan’s footballing career began at Malmö FF in the late nineties. The Swedish striker was quickly signed by Dutch side Ajax – the beginning of an illustrious international career that spanned the top Italian, French, Spanish and English leagues, playing for clubs such as Paris St-Germain, Barcelona, Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan. He currently plays at English record title-winners Manchester United.
Zlatan received the Swedish player of the year award Guldbollen (Golden Ball) a record eleven times, including ten consecutive times from 2007 to 2016.
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Volvo Car Group in 2016
Voor het boekjaar 2016 liet Volvo Car Group (Volvo Cars) een bedrijfswinst optekenen van 11 miljard SEK (EUR 1,2 miljard), tegenover 6,6 miljard SEK (EUR 697 miljoen) in 2015. De omzet voor dit boekjaar bedroeg 180,7 miljard SEK (EUR 19,1 miljard), tegenover 164,0 miljard SEK (EUR 17,3 miljard) in 2015. In 2016 verkocht Volvo Car Group wereldwijd 534.332 auto's, ofwel 6,2% meer dan in 2015. Deze recordcijfers qua omzet en bedrijfswinst betekenen dat Volvo Car Group kan blijven investeren in het wereldwijde transformatieplan.
Over Volvo Car Group
Volvo is actief sinds 1927. Vandaag is Volvo Cars een van de bekendste en meest gerespecteerde automerken ter wereld. In 2016 werden 534.332 Volvo's verkocht in ongeveer 100 landen. Sinds 2010 is Volvo Cars eigendom van Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) uit China. Het bedrijf maakte deel uit van de Zweeds Volvo Group tot 1999, wanneer het werd gekocht door het Amerikaanse Ford Motor Company. In 2010 werd Volvo Cars uiteindelijk overgenomen door Geely Holding.
In december 2016 stelde Volvo Cars wereldwijd meer dan 31.000 medewerkers tewerk. De hoofdzetel, productontwikkeling, marketing en administratie van Volvo Cars zijn grotendeels gevestigd in Göteborg, Zweden. Het hoofdkantoor van Volvo Cars voor China is gevestigd in Shanghai. De grootste autofabrieken van het bedrijf zijn gevestigd in Göteborg (Zweden), Gent (België) en Chengdu (China), terwijl de motoren worden gemaakt in Skövde (Zweden) en Zhangjiakou (China) en de carrosserie-onderdelen in Olofström (Zweden).
