Kongsberg Automotive awarded contract for head restraints valued at 45 millions

Kongsberg Automotive (KA) has recently been awarded the rear head restraint business for a North American minivan program. The planned volume for this program is 1 million head restraints per year, with 5 head restraints per vehicle. Total life of program sales will be approximately 45M Euro. Start of production is planned for 2010. The trimmed headrest includes a folding mechanism that was designed and developed by KA Engineering. In utilizing our design, the Customer is able to provide high safety capabilities for rear occupants, which meet increased legal regulations, and still meet Consumer demands for rear seat functionality. It also gives the driver increased rear/side vision, when folded, to help prevent blind spots. This program proves that KA can supply the whole system for full headrest assemblies anywhere in the world while meeting challenging performance and safety requirements. "With North American vehicle sales slumping, it is great to win a high volume program like this to secure our market position", said Hans Peter Havdal, President for Automotive Systems at KA. "It is important to be able to show Kongsberg's new innovations and ability to provide a robust and clever folding headrest assembly to our customers". Kongsberg Automotive is headquartered in Kongsberg, Norway and has approx. 50 facilities in 20 countries on all continents. Kongsberg Automotive, with over 8,000 employees, provides system solutions to vehicle makers around the world. The product portfolio includes gearshift systems, cables for a wide variety of applications, fuel lines, tubing and hoses, couplings, clutch actuation, stabilizing rods, seat heaters, seat ventilation, lumbar supports, head restrains, arm rests, steering columns, pedals, electronics and displays. Find more information at www.kongsbergautomotive.com. For further information, please contact: Ray Bomya, Executive Vice President North America, Automotive Systems Ph: +1 248 615 3090 / +1 313 515-0797 email: raymond.bomya@ka-group.com Ronny Lie, Director, Corporate Communication Ph: +47 32 77 05 11 / +47 916 10 798 e-mail: ronny.lie@ka-group.com