German VW’s official dealers have begun to sell Korean cars. It seems that the dealers at a loss due to push marketing and big discount sales have been looking for a breakthrough.

It’s the first occasion that import car dealers turn to handle local cars in parallel with imported cars.

According to an industry source, Renault-Samsung has recently selected three mega-dealers in the regions of Seoul and its vicinity, Pusan, and Daejon. The mega-dealers will have several sub-dealers under its umbrella, handling various brands at the same lot. BlueMotors in Seoul, RSAG in Daejon and Chungcheong regions, UHP-Auto in Pusan and Kyeongnam areas are those contracted.

Of the three, BlueMotors has its outlets at Nowon/Seoul, Yongin/Kyeonggi, and Iksan/Jeonbuk, while RSAG has distributors at Seosan/Chungnam, and Daeduk Vallly of Daejon, and UHP-Auto has sub-dealers at Pusan Namgu, Ulsan, and Changwon.

Those mega-dealers have taken over the showrooms managed directly by Renault-Samsung, and will expand their outlets in line with increase of sales.

The interesting thing is that Renault-Samsung’s mega-dealers, BlueMotors, RSAG, and UHP-Auto are actually the independent legal entities set up by VW’s official dealers in Seoul, Daejon, and Pusan.

The official dealers of VW have been suffering from severe management difficulties, registering big losses of up to several billion won during the first half of this year,

Especially, several dealers of VW, like Gojin Motors, gave up business due to several years of big losses caused by selling at a discount that exceeds dealer markup, in spite of increased sales volume.

As a result, the existing dealers have been struggling for survival, skewing for other brands. As soon as the ex-President of VW Korea, Dong-Hoon Park, moved to the Domestic Marketing Head of Renault-Samsung, in charge of domestic marketing and sales networks, the dealers shifted to businesses for Renault-Samsung cars.

In the meantime, Renault-Samsung has been streamlining their sales network into a dual system of direct sales and representatives, and their total outlets will be increased to 86 in August this year, adding on around 10 outlets every year, from 74 last year and 67 in 2012.