GM Korea has reached the milestone of 10 million cars in exports in its 21st year in Korea with vehicles ranging from the Chevrolet Aveo and the Spark to recent models such as the Trailblazer and the Trax Crossover.
GM Korea announced on Dec. 7 that it has crossed the 10 million unit mark in cumulative exports of vehicles 21 years after its inception in October 2002. Previously, the automaker reached one million units in 2005 and five million units in 2011. Including complete knock down (CKD) car exports, the total will climb to about 25 million units through November.
GM Korea’s achievement of posting 10 million cars in exports is a prime example of the steady growth of the country’s largest foreign-invested company in the manufacturing sector with a contribution to the Korean economy. GM Korea has consistently introduced a wide range of models from the Chevrolet Aveo, the Spark, the Trax, the Cruise and the Malibu to the Trax Crossover and Trailblazer which the automaker is currently producing.
Vehicles produced by GM Korea in Korea were shipped all over the world with 35 percent to North America and 26 percent to Western Europe. The largest export market for them is the United States where more than 2.5 million GM Korea vehicles were sold locally. By vehicle type, the Aveo is the most exported model of all time among GM Korea models with approximately 2.1 million units in exports, followed by the Spark and the Trax with approximately 1.94 million and 1.78 million units, respectively.
An encouraging fact is that GM Korea is currently enjoying export growth. In recent years, GM Korea’s Trailblazer and Trax Crossover ranked seventh and ninth in GM Korea’s cumulative export rankings, with 612,000 and 136,000 units exported, respectively. Of these, the Trailblazer has been the top export model among passenger vehicles exported from Korea with 176,123 units exported from January to October this year alone. The Trax Crossover has also been on the rise since it went on sale in February, ranking first in exports among models made in Korea for four consecutive months from June to September. As a result, GM Korea’s exports soared 84.8 percent year on year to 380,151 units in the first 11 months of this year.