BMW Korea has overtaken Mercedes-Benz Korea and regained the top spot in the Korean imported car market for the first time in eight years. Sales of environmentally friendly cars such as electric cars and hybrid cars have overtaken gasoline cars.
According to the Korea Automobile Import and Distribution Association (KAIDA) and the Calisho Data Institute, the total number of imported cars sold in December last year was 28,179, bringing the annual sales to 282,569. Last year’s sales decreased by 2.6% compared to the previous year’s 290,340 units.
The best-selling imported car brand was BMW, which sold 77,395 cars last year, taking the top spot for the first time since 2015. Next up was Mercedes-Benz with 76,697 units, just 698 fewer than BMW.
Audi sold 17,868 cars last year, narrowly beating out strong competition from Volvo (17,018) and Tesla (16,461) to maintain third place. Lexus followed with 13,561 units, Porsche with 11,355 units, and Volkswagen with 10,247 units.
The most popular imported car model that year was the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, with 23,640 units sold. This was followed by the BMW 5 Series with 20,492 units and the Tesla Model Y with 13,885 units. Only three imported models had sales exceeding 10,000 units. Fourth and fifth place went to Mercedes-Benz S-Class (9,414 units) and Audi A6 (7,882 units), respectively.
Last year, the number of imported environmentally friendly vehicles sold was 91,680 hybrid vehicles, 43,033 electric vehicles, and 1,796 plug-in hybrid vehicles, for a total of 145,509 vehicles. These figures exceeded sales of both diesel cars (22,354 units) and petrol cars (119,632 units) for the first time on an annual basis. The sales ratio of environmentally friendly vehicles was 51.4%, more than half.
By brand nationality, European brands accounted for the most units at 239,972 units (85.2%), followed by Japanese brands at 23,441 units (8.6%) and American brands at 16,621 units (6.1%). By purchase type, 163,357 units (60.3%) were purchased by individuals and 107,677 units (39.7%) were purchased by corporations.