Mercedes-Benz Most Popular among Foreign Car Brands
The sales volume of imported cars increased 15.2 percent year on year in the first half of this year. The most popular foreign car brand was Mercedes-Benz, followed by BMW, Audi, Volkswagen and Volvo. In that period, Mercedes-Benz Korea and BMW Korea sold more cars than GM Korea, Renault Samsung Motors and SsangYong Motor.
The Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association announced on July 5 that the sales volume is 147,757. “Consumers continued to prefer expensive cars regardless of COVID-19,” it explained, adding, “In addition, global automakers aggressively increased their supply in the South Korean market in spite of the ongoing global chip shortage.”
Mercedes-Benz sold 42,170 cars in South Korea in the first half of this year, up 16 percent from a year ago. The runner-up is BMW, whose sales volume in the market jumped 42.6 percent year on year to 36,261. For reference, GM Korea, Renault Samsung Motors and SsangYong Motor sold 33,160, 28,840 and 26,625 in the same market and period, respectively.
Those were followed by Audi (10,798), Volkswagen (8,752), Volvo (7,629), Mini (6,174) Jeep (5,927), Porsche (5,365) and Lexus (4,868).
In that period, the sales volume of imported diesel cars showed a year-on-year decline of 38.6 percent while those of imported hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars surged 197.7 percent and 323.5 percent, respectively. That of imported electric vehicles other than Tesla jumped 66.4 percent to 2,666.