April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s local automobile output significantly fell in 2016 on-year, slipping one notch to the sixth place in the world, according to industry data on Jan. 9.

According to the data from the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, five South Korea-based automakers produced a combined total of 4,228,536 vehicles in 2016, down 7.2 percent from 4,555,957 units the previous year.

The drop was largely attributed to missed production suffered by the leading automaker Hyundai Motor and its smaller affiliate Kia Motors due to a series of walkouts staged by their own unionized workers over wage negotiations.

The two largest carmakers here also have 12 other overseas facilities in nine countries, including the United States and China, that helped prevent their global sales from plunging.

Still, their combined sales dipped 1.7 percent on-year to some 7.88 million cars last year, apparently due to the missed production they suffered here at their local facilities.

According to KAMA, Hyundai‘s local output plunged 9.6 percent on-year to 1,679,906 in 2016, while the No. 2 automaker Kia Motors saw its local output shrink 9.4 percent to 1,556,845.

GM Korea also had its local output shrink 5.7 percent on-year to 579,745 mostly due to a sharp drop in exports.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)