Sales of Luxury Cars Growing
The Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association announced on May 10 that 97,486 imported cars, up 25.6 percent from a year ago, were sold in South Korea from January to April this year. Those include 20,203 cars with a price of at least 100 million won. The figure increased 74.13 percent year on year.
The ratio of those expensive cars in the imported car market rose from 14.9 percent to 20.7 percent in that period. On the other hand, the ratio of those priced at 50 million won or less fell from 29.3 percent to 23.5 percent.
In the case of Mercedes-Benz Korea, the number of the expensive cars sold from January to April this year is 7,870, up 54.7 percent from a year earlier. In BMW Korea, the number jumped 105.9 percent to 5,893. It increased 53.8 percent to 3,366 in Porsche. The Lamborghini Urus posted a sales volume of 94 with a year-on-year increase of 32.4 percent. In addition, Bentley and Rolls-Royce sold 51 Continental GT V8s and 23 Cullinans, respectively.
“Although more than half of the expensive cars were purchased by corporations instead of individuals, an increasing number of South Korean consumers are picking luxury cars and this has to do with various factors, including their pent-up desire attributable to COVID-19,” said an industry source.