This photo provided by Ford Korea shows the new Ford Explorer SUV.
SEOUL, Aug. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea fell 12 percent last month from a year earlier as the chip shortage continued to affect vehicle production, an industry association said Wednesday.
The number of newly registered foreign vehicles stood at 21,423 units last month, down from 24,423 units a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement.
The three bestselling models last month were Ford Motor Co.’s Explorer SUV, Mercedes-Benz’s E 350 4MATIC sedan and BMW’s X3 2.0 SUV, it said.
In July, three German brands — Volkswagen Group Korea, BMW Group Korea and Mercedes-Benz Korea — sold a combined 14,426 units, down 17 percent from 17,377 the previous year.
German cars accounted for nearly 70 percent of imported vehicles sold in Asia’s fourth-biggest economy last month, KAIDA said.
Three Japanese brands — Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and its independent brand, Lexus — sold 1,467 units last month, down 28 percent from 2,045 a year earlier.
Imported brands accounted for 18.02 percent of the Korean passenger vehicle market in June, down from 19.04 percent a year ago. Their market share for July has yet to be released, KAIDA said.
From January to July, imported car registrations declined 12 percent to 152,432 autos from 172,146 units during the same period of last year, it said.
(Yonhap)
