Swedish football legend Zlatan Ibrahimović visits Volvo Cars
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
For the 2016 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 11,014 MSEK (6,620 MSEK in 2015). Revenue over the period amounted to 180,672 MSEK (164,043 MSEK). For the full year 2016, global sales reached a record 534,332 cars, an increase of 6.2 per cent versus 2015. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 534,332 cars in 2016 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.
As of December 2016, Volvo Cars had over 31,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).