The car you have driven, the shoes your grandparents wore and the antivirus on your laptop are all Czech.
Czech industry has an odd relationship with recognition: several of its companies became genuinely global, and almost nobody outside the country associates them with Czechia. Here are the ones you have already encountered.
Škoda
Founded in Mladá Boleslav in 1895 as a bicycle workshop, then cars from 1905. Nationalised under communism, when the name became a punchline in Western Europe, and bought by Volkswagen after 1989 — a turnaround so complete that Škoda now outsells VW itself in several markets. It remains the single largest company in the country.
Baťa
Tomáš Baťa built a shoe empire from Zlín in the 1920s and 30s, complete with a purpose-built modernist company town that still defines the city. Baťa pioneered assembly-line shoemaking, profit-sharing and the …99 price. The company survives globally, headquartered in Switzerland after the family fled in 1938.
Avast
Founded in Prague in 1988 as a cooperative, Avast became one of the most-used antivirus products in the world and merged with NortonLifeLock in 2022 — one of the largest tech deals in Czech history.
Budvar and Pilsner Urquell
Two breweries whose products are sold in most countries on earth. Budvar remains state-owned and has spent a century in trademark litigation with Anheuser-Busch over the Budweiser name.
Zetor, Tatra, ČKD
Zetor tractors were exported across the developing world for decades. Tatra builds distinctive off-road trucks and once made radical streamlined cars. ČKD built trams that still run in dozens of cities.
Kofola and the smaller names
Kofola is the Czech cola invented in 1960 that still outsells Pepsi here. Botas, Petrof pianos and Jawa motorcycles all have devoted followings abroad.
자주 묻는 질문
Is Škoda still Czech?
It is owned by Volkswagen but designed, engineered and largely built in the Czech Republic, and employs tens of thousands here.
What is Kofola?
A Czech cola-style soft drink from 1960, herbal and less sweet than Coca-Cola. It genuinely competes with the American brands domestically.
Where was Baťa founded?
In Zlín, Moravia, which Baťa rebuilt as a modernist company town in the 1920s and 30s.
Read more: the Czech economy, Czech inventions 그리고 business guides.
Last reviewed in August 2026.
