AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/07 Report--

Recently, a group of South Korean media exposed a list of imported models in South Korea in January, of which German models accounted for an extremely large share. Due to the continuing impact of the "boycott of Japanese goods" sparked in October last year, sales of Japanese models in South Korea this year are still low even if they make a big profit.

According to the Korea Import Automobile Association, the cumulative sales of imported cars in South Korea in January 2020 were 16478, down 10.5% from the same period last year, mainly affected by the shortening of business days for New year's cars and the cancellation of personal consumption tax relief. The top three best-selling imported car brands of the month were 5492 Mercedes-Benz, 2708 BMW and 1753 Audi-Volkswagen, while Japanese imported models fell to 1320 from 3752 last year, down 64.8 per cent from the same period last year.

From the list of models, the top five have been occupied by three Mercedes-Benz models. Among them, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class has become the best-selling model, with cumulative sales of 2416 vehicles, but it is one of the models with the largest decline in sales in the Mercedes-Benz brand. Mercedes-Benz C-Class fell by more than 50% year-on-year, and the rest of the models achieved year-on-year growth. Obviously, Mercedes-Benz also has a high market performance in the South Korean market.

The performance of the BMW brand continued to decline in the South Korean market in January, as a result of emissions fraud and problem recalls, so that all its models fell sharply from the previous month, including the BMW 5-Series, 6-Series and X3 models in the rankings.

In April last year, a local court upheld a fine of 14.5 billion won (84.14 million yuan) on the company for faking exhaust emissions. The judge said that BMW Group South Korea had forged the entire test report and must be severely punished in order to avoid making mistakes again. In December of the same year, he was fined 11.2 billion won (about 64.99 million yuan) for a series of engine fires. Since the incident, BMW has recalled more than 100000 cars and promised to provide new cars to customers whose diesel cars are on fire.

Although the Audi brand competes with Mercedes-Benz and BMW in Huaneng, the Audi brand has been underperforming the first two in the South Korean market, with sales in the doldrums for the whole of last year until the launch of its new Q7 and A6 models in August and January.

Although overall sales of imported cars continue to be sluggish, the sharp decline in Japanese car sales is also one of the reasons, which is still analyzed by the continuous boycott of Japanese goods that began in October last year. As a result, Toyota sold only 420 vehicles in January, down 59.9% from a year earlier, of which Lexus, which has the largest number of "loyal customers" in the South Korean market, sold only 509 vehicles, while Lexus ES fell as much as 73.7% from a year earlier. Honda and Nissan sold only 331 and 59 cars, down 50.5% and 82.7% respectively over the same period. Infiniti, which sold 162 in January last year, sold only one in January this year.

Some analysts pointed out that Japan underestimated the impact of the South Korean market on some of its industries. Data show that Japanese car sales grew by more than 10% year-on-year in the first half of 2019, but plummeted 45% in the second half of the year after the economic dispute between Japan and South Korea. To this end, the Japanese government is trying to ease relations with South Korea, but has not yet regained its recognition by South Korean consumers. On the contrary, South Korean companies are more likely to cooperate with Chinese companies and gradually shift to the Chinese market.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat