[AutoDaily] This year's annual Country Ratings Poll for the BBC World Service is getting attention again.
 
While the popularity of German cars in South Korea are rising, some unexpected news has appeared in a ratings poll.
 
The BBC said that Germans have rated South Korea most negatively, with 65% against a mere 17% positive votes. This is 20% points higher vote on the negative side compared to France, the UK and other european countries.
 
The reason that Germans don't like Koreans is related to some issue with sports.
 
During the 2002 World Cup semi-finals, the Korean fans used some provocative banners related to Hitler and hung out portraits of the deceased including Oliver Kahn and Miroslav Klose who were on the 2002 German national team. It created a lot of German anger.
 
Another incident was the semifinal of the women's individual fencing competition during the last Olympics in London. The Korean people thought there was a wrong decision between the German player Britta Heidemann and the South Korean Sin A-ram. As a result, some the Koreans made a personal attack imprudently about Britta Heidemann.
 
The BBC reported that Germans still don't like Koreans. But German cars are becoming popular in South Korea.
 
Car sales up to July so far show that German cars have taken 67% (59,922 sold) of imported car sales in Korea. It has showed an increase of 2.7% from last years 64.3% from the same period. Japanese vehicles were at 15.4%, a decrease of 2.5%. U.S vehicles with 7.3%, were 0.3% down.
 
Percentage wise German cars take the top four places in the import car market. BMW sales rank highest at 22.1%, followed by Mercedes-Benz at 15.9%, Volkswagen 15.2%, Audi 12.5%. The sports car maker Porsche is also becoming more popular and have increased their sales over last year.
 
This result is in contrast to a 1% decrease of Hyundai Motor Co. sales in Germany from the start of the year until the end of July.
 
Recently, German car manufacturers have repositioned their strategy in the Korean market by bringing in Germans to manage the Korean Corporate Management Group, which consists of Volkswagen and Audi, to be financial management experts and executives in marketing. Except for sales, A/S, and public relations (PR), most key positions in the Korean offices have been replaced by German managers.
 
With all the new changes with the German manufacturers in Korea, it has created some controversial issues.
 
 
By Lee Sangwon.
(translate by Lee Jeonghwa)