Hard Hit in Sales
General Motors saw its South Korean vehicle sales tumbled by almost half in March compared to a year earlier. Its sales have halved for the second month in a row since February. This is largely due to the company’s decision to shut down its plant in Gunsan in February and rumors about withdraw from the domestic market driven by the delay in reaching an agreement on management normalization among the government, GM and labor union in March.
According to GM Korea on April 2, it sold a total of 41,260 cars in March, down 18.9 percent from the same period last year. GM Korea saw its exports drop a mere 3 percent to 34,988 units but it showed sluggish sales in the domestic market. The company sold 6,272 cars in the domestic market last month. The figure fell a whopping 57.6 percent from that of March last year.
However, its domestic sales increased 8.1 percent from the previous month as the company has started providing some benefits from last month to deal with sluggish sales, such as an extension of guarantee period, value proposition of used cars and higher discounts. The sales of the all-new Cruze compact sedan doubled, while that of the Captiva and the Orlando also grew by 20 to 56 percent.
Dale Sullivan, vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing at GM Korea, said, “We are seeing a positive consumer response for Chevrolet cars by carrying out our promotional activities to restore the customer confidence. We will remove market concerns through the extension of guarantee period and value proposition of used cars in April as well.”