Sales of Imported Cars Will Top 60,000 Units Next Year
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Sales of imported automobiles in South Korea are expected to top 60,000 units next year to continue the recent years’ high growth rates. But official dealers of foreign-made cars face both opportunities and challenges, such as the longtime controversy over prices.
``Our sales are expected to top 60,000 units in 2008,’’ Yoon Dae-sung, executive director of the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA), said in a press meeting. ``We expect to have at least 10 percent market share in the long term.’’
Up until November, more than 50,000 foreign-made passenger cars have been sold this year, for the first time in 20 years since 1987 when the first foreign-made car was imported and sold here.
Yoon reviewed the past two decades and presented the association’s vision at the press conference arranged to mark the 20th anniversary since the opening of the South Korean market to foreign cars.
In 1987, only 10 foreign vehicles were sold here. But sales of the imported cars, which had long remained as synonymous with over-consumption, rose to 50,000 units in 20 years. Now a total of 13 importers and distributors are dealing with 280 models from 24 brands.
``Recent trends show that our sales have been rising in the below-2,000cc sector priced under 50 million won, in particular,’’ Yoon told reporters. ``Younger people, in their 30s, have emerged as important consumers lately.’’
But he and other officials from the association of official dealers showed negative views about the so-called gray importers, or those who sell imported cars unofficially through parallel imports, citing poor after-sales service for customers.
SK Networks, an affiliate of SK Group, announced last month that it would sell five foreign auto brands at its new imports-only stores amid a controversy over high prices of imported automobiles.
KAIDA Chairman Song Seung-chul stressed that the association would also make efforts to provide high-quality cars at more reasonable prices and stage various corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities next year to live up to expectations of customers.
KAIDA Vice Chairpersons R. Wayne Chumley and Greg Philips and other dignitaries from the industry also participated in the press conference at Westin Chosun Hotel, downtown Seoul.