By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
South Korean automakers are witnessing a widening gap between their domestic sales and exports, as they have been focusing more and more on global strategies to overcome difficulties at home, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA) Tuesday.
In the first five months of this year, a total of 1.18 million vehicles including sedans, buses and trucks were exported abroad, about 2.4 times larger than the number of automobiles sold at home, which stood at around 495,500 in the same period.
Sales priority of the country’s carmakers was placed on the domestic market five years ago. In 2002, the proportion of exports (1.50 million units) was 93.1 percent when the domestic sales (1.62 million units) were set at 100.
But the ratio has constantly increased to 137.7 percent in 2003, 217.6 percent in 2004, 226.3 percent in 2005 and 227.5 percent in 2006, a common phenomenon for all vehicle types.
Experts attributed the widening gap between exports and domestic sales largely to the gradually shrinking domestic market, which reached a peak of 1.62 million in 2002. Last year, domestic carmakers sold only 1.16 million vehicles at home.
On the contrary, the country’s leading automakers have paid more attention to the other parts of the world in the past five years to resolve the difficulties at home, while exploring overseas markets and fortifying aggressive marketing strategies abroad.
Sales both at home and abroad of the nation’s five carmakers -- Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, GM Daewoo, Renault Samsung and SsangYong -- increased thanks to their performance abroad in the first half of the year, though domestic sales remained somewhat sluggish.
Hyundai Motor, the country’s top automaker, said Monday that its auto sales at home and abroad rose 8.5 percent last month to 227,533. Sales in the first half of the year rose 3.7 percent from a year earlier to 1.29 million, the company said in a statement.
Kia Motors, a Hyundai Motor affiliate and the country’s third-largest automaker by sales, said its sales from January to June rose 2.8 percent to 677,231 from a year ago. However, its sales fell 3.1 percent in June to 112,481.
GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, the second-largest automaker, said sales climbed 32.8 percent from a year ago to 483,655 in the first half, while sales jumped 35.7 percent in June to 84,700.
Renault Samsung Motors also performed well in the first six months with sales up 9.2 percent from a year ago to 82,463. But the company’s sales declined 9 percent last month to 13,148.
Ssangyong Motor, the country’s smallest automaker, said its sales rose 8.3 percent in June to 11,437 vehicles, some 5,850 in South Korea and 5,587 overseas.
Given the performance in the first half, experts said, the 2007 domestic sales of the five automakers are expected to rise 7.5 percent to 1.24 million in total by the end of the year.
``Demand on the domestic market has been stagnant in recent years and the country’s automakers have taken aggressive moves to explore overseas markets,’’ an industry source said. ``So we expect the gap between exports and domestic sales to widen further in the coming days.’’