Imported green cars showed meager sales in South Korea

[THE INVESTOR] Despite the recent expansion of the imported car market in South Korea, sales did not grow so fast.

A total of 1.01 million imported cars were sold from January 2010 to May 2016, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association on June 26.

But among them, only 41,466 units, or 4 percent, were eco-friendly vehicles. Out of the 26 carmakers selling imported cars, 15 did not sell eco-friendly cars at all.

Only 0.4 percent of sales from BMW, the No.1 seller here, were green cars. For Mercedes-Benz, the figure was at 0.1 percent, and 1.3 percent for Ford. Honda and Infiniti sold 3 percent and 3.8 percent of green cars, respectively.

Volkswagen, the third-largest seller by selling 143,760 units, did not sell any green cars, with 92 pecent of its sales coming from diesel vehicles.

Japan‘s Toyota and Lexus brands were the best sellers, each accounting for 59 percent and 35.1 percent of the total green car sales.

The import automobile market grew 48.5 percent in 2010, a turnaround from a 1.1 percent decline in 2009.

During 2010 and 2015, the market has been growing an average 25 percent a year. In 2011, it expanded by 16 percent in 2011, then by 24.6 percent in 2012. In 2014 and 2015, growth rates were above 20 percent.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)