The company employs 17,946 staff members, of whom 81% work at locations outside Germany. This corresponds to the capacity of the “Westfalenhallen” arena complex in Dortmund. KOSTAL is represented on 4 continents with 46 locations in 21 countries, making it a true global player.
In 2017, 240 million KOSTAL products were supplied to customers, of which 33 million were Electronic Control Units, 52 million were Mechatronic Modules and 152 million were Switch Panels & Switches. If we assume a width of 20 cm per part, KOSTAL products would easily stretch around the Equator (40,075 km) when lined up end to end.
In the past year, more than 20 million steering column modules were sold: in other words, almost every fourth car was equipped with a KOSTAL steering column module. According to the German Association of the Automotive Industry, 85 million passenger cars were manufactured worldwide in 2017. KOSTAL products worth €25 were installed in every vehicle on average.
KOSTAL invests more than 6% of its turnover into research and development, whereas the industry average is 3% (source: Automotive News, issue 15/2016). With an average of 6.4% of turnover, these investments continuously exceed depreciation and write-downs.
Founding year: 1912
€2,564 million turnover in 2017
18,000 employees worldwide
R&D investment equates to 8% of turnover
46 locations in 21 countries on 4 continents
