Dominance by Mercedes Benz
Last month, the aftermaths of the suspension of Volkswagen sales lowered sales of import cars 12% from a year before. In particular, Mercedes Benz sold close to 5,000 units of the new E Class, which propelled the German automaker one step closer to the top of the import car market in Korea in seven years.
The Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) announced on September 6 that the month of August saw 15,932 new import cars registered, down 12.5% from a year earlier.
This figure is up 1.3% from July. Accumulated import cars sales from January to August stood at 148,411, down 6.5% from a year earlier.
Last month, Mercedes Benz acceded to the throne in the import car market in Korea by selling 4,835 units. Second-ranked BMW was 1,788 units apart from Mercedes Benz. This year, Mercedes Benz and BMW sold 33,507 and 28,839 units in total, respectively, from January to August.
Audi Volkswagen’s fabrication of certification documents led to a ban on the sale of its cars, helping Ford and Lincoln (912 units) rise to number 3. The top 3 were followed by 4th-ranked Land Rover (866 units), 5th-placed Toyota (824 units) and 6th-placed Mini (715 units), seventh-ranked Honda (580 units), eighth-placed Lexus (573 units), number nine Nissan (478 units) and number ten Audi (476 units).
In addition, Chrysler sold 469 units; Volvo, 458 units; Jaguar, 449 units; Infinity, 310 units; Porsche, 301 units; Peugeot, 287 units; Cadillac, 147 units; Volkswagen, 76; Fiat, 67; Citroen, 56; Rolls-Royce, 4 units and Lamborghini, 2 units.
By regions, Europe sold 11,639 units (73.1%), Japan, 2,765 units (17.4%) and the US, 1,528 units (9.6%). By fuels, diesel cars sold 8,664 units (54.4%), gasoline cars, 6,195 units (38.9%), hybrid cars, 1,050 units (6.6%) and electric cars, 23 units (0.1%). By purchase types, 61.4% (9,780 units) sold to individuals while 38.6% (6,152 units) to legal bodies.
Last month, the three best selling models were Mercedes-Benz E300 (1,202 units) △ Mercedes-Benz E220d (979 units) and Mercedes-Benz C220d (573 units), showing that Mercedes Benz dominated the market.