Automobiles in October
Sales of five local carmakers have dropped because of labor strikes and slow exports. The sales of Hyundai Motors, which settled their strike early, increased, while that of Kia Motors, which solved their strikes late, dropped a lot due to a supply shortage.
According to industry sources on Nov. 3, October’s sales volume in the domestic and overseas market of five companies, which are Hyundai Motors, Kia Motors, GM Korea, Renault Samsung, and Ssangyong Motor, dropped 2.3 percent from the same month last year, which reached 748,025 units. It increased by 7.3 percent compared to last month.
Domestic sales decreased slightly. Five companies sold 121,430 units domestically in last month, which is 0.5 percent lower than October last year.
The exports suffer a relatively high fluctuation due to drop in exchange rates. The five car manufacturers exported 626,595 units, down 2.6 percent from a year earlier.
However, domestic sales increased by 9.7 percent and exports by 6.9 percent each compared to the previous month, which creates an expectation that the automobile industry will recover.
By company, the sales of Hyundai Motors and Renault Samsung increased by 1.9 percent (429,346 units) and 72.7 percent (21,980 units) respectively, while sales have decreased for Kia Motors by 7.0 percent (231,706 units), GM Korea by 20.9 percent (53,503 units), and Ssangyong Motor by 19.3 percent (11,490 units).
Among them, Renault Samsung made the best sales, exceeding 20,000 units in three years after Oct. 2011 due to the partial solution of the QM3 supply shortage in the domestic market and exports of the Nissan Rogue.
The sales of Hyundai Motors exceeded 40,000 units in four months due to a sales upswing of major models in both domestic and foreign markets along with the end of strikes and normalization of supplies, but the increase was not that big.
On the other hand, the effect of launching new models of Kia Motors decreased by half, as the sales home and abroad decreased largely due to labor strikes, despite the favorable sales of new model Sorento and Carnival.
The drops in the sales performance of GM Korea and Ssangyong Motor were due to a decrease in exports. The two companies suffered a 26.1 percent and a 21.6 percent drop, respectively, in exports.