SEAT, S.A.is a Spanish automobile manufacturer with its head office in Martorell, Catalonia, Spain.It was founded on May 9, 1950, by the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI), a state-owned industrial holding company. Since 1986 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the German Volkswagen Group.
The headquarters of SEAT, S.A. are located at SEAT's industrial complex in Martorell near Barcelona. By 2000 annual production peaked at over 500,000 units; in total up to 2006, over 16 million cars have been produced including more than 6 million from the Martorell plant,with three-quarters of the annual production being exported to over seventy countries worldwide.