Official Sponsor Continental already active in South Africa for a long time

Hanover (pps) While stadiums, workflow and organization of the FIFA World Cup 2010 are currently being tested during the Confederations Cup, Continental AG has already been active with an own production site in South Africa since the beginning of the seventies. This is one reason, why the Hanover based car supplier, having more than 130.000 employees worldwide today, decided to continue as a partner of professional football and to accompany the FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010™ as Official Sponsor.

Nikolai Setzer, responsible for Continental's worldwide business in passenger and light truck tires: "With this top sponsorship we will, for our premium tire brand Continental, continue on the path that we started to follow in 1995 with five years of sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League, the sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 as well as the UEFA EURO 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.

As Europe's leading tire manufacturer we focus on football as a central platform of communication to boost the high profile of our brand on our international core markets continuously and to charge the brand image with the emotions of the football environment."

In the South African replacement business Continental holds a leading market share in locally produced tires of 20 per cent. In Port Elizabeth, one of the World Cup venues, the company has a plant for passenger tires, which produced and sold more than 2.5 million tires with about 1.500 employees in 2008. Furthermore, another Continental plant for commercial tires in Port Elizabeth satisfies the demand of the region south of the Sahara, including the venue country of the FIFA World Cup 2010. Setzer: "We are convinced that we can clearly improve the brand awareness, especially in the emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and South America. Via the football sponsoring of the FIFA World Cup 2010 we want to install Continental in the long run as one of the top premium brands in tire business. And we want to achieve this faster than it would be possible with classical advertisement."

Football fans will benefit from this commitment not only by supplying their car with the especially safe Continental tires. On www.ContiSoccerWorld.de detailed information and insights of teams and stars of the current Confederations Cup in South Africa, the Under 21 European Championship in Sweden as well as the qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup 2010 are available concisely and with exclusive opinion. On this website, Continental also offers information on ticket lotteries for the FIFA World Cup 2010. That's why regular visits can pay off for multiple reasons.