The Volkswagen Incident is making the huge popularity of German cars among Korean consumers ebbing away as market share of German vehicles decline in Korea.
According to the Korea Automotive Importers & Dealers Association on August 16, German cars’ market share hit 57.6% in July, the lowest this year. By contrast, that of Japanese cars stood at 15.5%, up 3.2% from a year earlier while that of US automobiles rose 2%p to 9.4%. That of UK cars rose 3.3%p to 11.7% while that of Swedish vehicles 1.5%p to 2.9%.
From January through July, German vehicles chalked up a market share of 63.4%, down 5.1%p from 68.5% a year earlier.
Japanese, UK and US cars are expanding their markets with their markets share inching up year on year.
Land Rover sold 6,349 units by the end of July, exhibiting year on year growth of 62.3%. Jaguar also sold 1,907 units, up 19% from a year before.
Lexus recorded a year on year increase of 22% by selling 5,230 units.
Infiniti and Honda posted 31% and 24% sales increases by selling 2111 and 3524 units, respectively.
Toyota also enjoyed a sales increase of 12% by selling 4,959 units.
Sales of Swedish Volvo grew 29% year on year by selling 3,030 units.
Among the top 10 best-selling models during the January to July period of this year, seven were German cars (Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi) and the remaining three were the Lexus ES300h, the Land Rover Discovery Sport TD4 and the Ford Explorer 2.3 – BusinessKorea