Nov. Vehicle Sales Fall 15 pct amid Chip Shortage

SEOUL, Dec. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean automakers’ sales fell 15 percent last month from a year earlier as a prolonged chip shortage continued to affect vehicle production and sales, industry data showed Wednesday.

The country’s five carmakers — Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Corp., GM Korea Co., Renault Samsung Motors Corp. and SsangYong Motor Co. — sold a combined 573,758 vehicles in November, down from 674,725 units a year ago, sales data from the companies showed.

Their domestic sales declined 14 percent to 123,136 units from 143,591, while overseas sales dropped 15 percent to 450,622 from 531,134 during the same period, the data said.

Disrupted vehicle supplies amid chip shortages and resurgence in COVID-19 cases drove the carmakers’ monthly sales results.

Hyundai Motor’s sales fell 17 percent to 312,602 units from 377,193 a year ago. Sales of its affiliate Kia declined 13 percent to 222,232 from 256,215 during the same period.

Hyundai had suspended the Asan plant several times since July due to the chip parts problems, which affected the production of the Santa Fe SUV and the Sonata sedan.

In December, Hyundai and Kia said they will focus on promoting their new models, including Hyundai’s all-electric IONIQ 5 crossover utility vehicle and Kia’s all-electric EV6 model.

To reflect the supply-side issues, Hyundai recently revised down its sales target to 4 million vehicles for the year from 4.16 million units announced early this year. Last year, it sold 3.74 million autos.

Kia said it won’t be able to achieve this year’s sales target of 2.92 million units due to the same parts problems.

GM Korea and SsangYong Motor also came up with poor on-year sales results last month due to parts shortages and lack of new models.

GM Korea’s sales plunged 43 percent to 12,274 units from 21,384, and SsangYong’s dropped 26 percent to 8,748 from 11,859.

But Renault Samsung’s sales more than doubled to 11,743 autos last month from 867 a year ago, helped by increased exports of the QM6 SUV.

From January to November, the automakers’ overall sales rose 4.1 percent to 6.54 million units from 6.28 million in the year-ago period.

Their domestic sales fell 12 percent to 1.3 million autos in the first 11 months from 1.47 million units a year earlier, while their overseas sales rose 8.9 percent to 5.24 million from 4.81 million.

(Yonhap)