Automobile Industry
The amount of exports in the domestic automobile industry marked the highest in the monthly record in its history.
According to the “Automobile Industry Trend in October” announced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy on November 10, last month, 280,609 cars were exported. This is 9.0% higher than the previous month, due to the normalization of Hyundai and Kia Motors operations. In fact, the actual amount of exports reached US$4.65 billion, which is the highest in monthly record, thanks to the increase of average export costs and other factors.
Domestic sales volume for the same period of time also increased 19.7% compared to the previous month, to 137,035 vehicles, due to improvements in consumer psychology and the high demand of RV and imported models. However, compared to the same period in the previous year, there has been a 0.2% reduction, as a base effect of the reduced individual consumption tax for automobiles in Q4 last year.
Domestic brands sold 122,027 vehicles, increasing 17.2% compared to the previous month (101,021). Per brand, Hyundai Motors sold 57,553 vehicles, which is an increase of 11,296. Kia Motors sold 39,000, with an increase of 6,877, and Chevrolet sold 13,922 with an increase of 670 vehicles. SsangYong Motors showed good progress, selling 6,202 vehicles, which is an increase of 1,770. However, this is 1.3% less than October last year, when the Korean Thanksgiving holidays were included.
On the other hand, the market for imported cars also continues to do well. According to KAIDA, the amount of imported vehicles in October is 14,154, which is 17.8% higher than the same month the previous year (12,019). Compared to September (12,668), there has been an 11.7% increase. As for the number of registered imports per displacement, there were 8,163 vehicles with less than 2000cc, making up 57.7% of the total. 29.5% (4,170 vehicles) were from 2000-3000cc. 12.9% were above 3000cc. By country, Europe took 81.7%, which is 11,568 vehicles, Japan 10.7% (1,515 vehicles), and the US 7.6% (1,071 vehicles).
On the top 10 list of registered cars per brand, BMW is in first place with 2,939 vehicles. Volkswagen follows with 2,890 vehicles, Mercedes-Benz with 2,238, and Audi with 1,803. German brands dominated the top 4. Ford’s Lincoln marked 702 vehicles, the Mini 522, Lexus 463, Toyota 418, Chrysler 343, and Land Rover 285. The best-selling model in October was Volkswagen’s Tiguan 2.0 TDI BlueMotion (736 vehicles), the Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TDI (588), and the BMW 520d (555).
A Danawa Automobile associate said, “In the same month last year, the sales ratio of imported to domestic cars were 8.8 to 91.2, but this year, the ratio is 10.4 to 89.6, with imported cars breaking 10%.”
Despite the global economic uncertainties, there were 425,557 vehicles produced, powered by operation normalization and increase in export. This is 7.3% higher than last year, and the highest monthly value so far this year.
In fact, the accumulative domestic vehicle production since January to October this year has reached 79,658,767. Considering the recent trend, this number will break 80 million within this month. Since 1955, with the production of Korea’s first domestic model “Sibal,” it took 37 years to produce 10 million cars. However, the country’s 8th set of 10 million cars will be produced in only two years and two months.