Non-German cars gain popularity in Korea

The fast-growing imported car market in Korea, which has been dominated by major German brands ― BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen ― is slowly giving way to non-German brands, data showed Wednesday.

Various non-German brands improved their market share in the imported vehicle sector ― which has been growing at an average of 32.7 percent ― during the first quarter of this year. At the same time, German carmakers continue to outperform other brands by a large margin in terms of the number of cars sold, according to a report released by the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association.

Compared to the first quarter of 2014, Japanese automakers including Lexus, Toyota, Nissan and Honda saw their market share rise by 0.5 percent to reach 11.8 percent in 2015. Moreover, they recorded a 38.2 percent increase on-year in absolute number of sales, selling 6,938 cars in the first quarter.

British auto brands including Jaguar and Land Rover also expanded by 1.4 percent to hold a market share of 6.8 percent in the imported auto sector. In particular, Land Rover sold more than twice as many cars than last year, with 1,655 registered sales in the first quarter of 2015.

French brands including Peugeot increased their share in the imported vehicle sector from 1.5 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to 2.5 percent, while Swedish brands such as Volvo saw a 0.4 percent increase in share to 1.8 percent in 2015.

“The growing popularity of non-German brands like Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover likely reflects consumers’ growing appetite for more diversity in their automobile purchase choices,” said a representative from KAIDA.

Meanwhile, American brands including Ford and Chrysler saw a 0.2 percent decline in their total market share, dropping from 7.3 to 7.1 percent, though they sold a significantly higher number of cars in the first quarter of 2015 than last year. Italian brands including Fiat saw a 0.2 percent decline in their market share as well.

Though recent figures show that non-German car brands are slowly gaining popularity among local consumers, German automakers nonetheless continue to lead the market.

Of the nearly 60,000 registered imported car sales in the first quarter of 2015, 41,075 were by German automakers, with BMW Group Korea taking up the largest share at 19.51 percent, followed by Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen.

However, German automakers’ total share dropped by 3 percent from 72.7 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to 69.7 percent in 2015, largely due to BMW’s recent drop in sales ― by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)