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Korea Has Overtaken Japan in Sales of Luxuty German Cars

  • 기사입력 2014.08.18 15:02
  • 기자명 Teddi Kim

Sales of German cars in Korea has for the first time exceeded Japan. Last year’s import car sales in Japan registered 346 thousand units, 2.2 fold of Korea’s.

According to the reports by KAIDA and JAIA, the major five German car makers, such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, VW, Audi, and Porsche sold 13,024 units in Korea in July 2014, which does exceed by 143 units, compared with Japan’s 12,881 units.

It is first time that German car sales in Korea expel those in Japan.

Among the count, Audi topped the list, selling 2,860 units, over 1,000 units of Japan’s, while BMW sold 3,353 units, over around 700 units compared with Japan’s.

Even Porsche, with a tag price of 100 million won and over, hailed 205 units, 43 units more than Japan’s, and Mercedes-Benz sold 500 units more with 3,349 units vs 3,861 units.

However, the most popular brand VW in Japan reached 4,186 units, that is 1,000 units over Korea’s.

Those five brands’ market share in July was 71.9% in Korea, which is far exceeding Japan’s 55.5% in the same month.

German five companies sales during the first seven months stood at 80,057 units in Korea, which is up 33.7%, compared with las year’s 2,0135 units. The increase rate is higher by 8.1% point than the rate for total import car sales, at 25.6%.

In the meantime, the five German brands’ total sales during Jan.~July stood at 116,786 units, up just 7.6% over the same period of the previous year, while total import car sales registered 192,008 units, down 2.3% from the previous year’s 196,458 units.

In Japan, the imports of their own brands, such as Toyota, Nissan, etc, that were assembled in the overseas plants are on an increase, and so the imports of German cars are on a significantly downward trend.

On the contrary, in Korea the German car makers are successfully marketing with a so-called tactic “Decoying discount” attracting more buyers.

At the moment, Audi Korea offers 20% discount for A6 model, while BMW Korea is giver 15% markdown on the normal price for 520d.

Especially, BMW is rebating 13% at the highest for 320d which has backlog of over 3 month orders, and VW Golf and Tiguan, as well as Mercedes-Benz E Class are also lowering 4~5% of retail prices in spite of lack of stocks.

For instance, the Audi A6 with a price tag of 58 million won is offered at 46 million won, a 20 percent discount, and so consumers choose better fuel efficient A6 rather than similar-priced Grandeur high-end models or Genesis.

Some market analysts predict that the German cars’ decoying marketing will bring about substantial impact to not only import cars but local high-end cars in a long term perspective.

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