April 20, 2024

• 

Imported vehicle sales in South Korea fell 30 percent in April from a year earlier due mainly to a supply shortage, industry data showed on May 7.

The number of newly registered foreign vehicles stood at 18,219 in April, down from 25,923 a year earlier, the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association said in a statement.

“Some brands, such as Mercedes-Benz, couldn’t deliver enough cars to meet demand. Lack of supply weighed on sales last month,” KAIDA Vice Chairman Yoon Dae-sung said in the statement.

The three best-selling models were the Mercedes-Benz E 300 sedan, the Mercedes-Benz E 300 4MATIC sedan and the Lexus ES300h.

The portion of German vehicles fell to 56 percent last month from 66 percent of the imported passenger vehicle market a year earlier, the statement said.

In the January-April period, imported car sales dropped 25 percent to 70,380 units from 93,328 tallied a year earlier, it said.

Imported carmakers accounted for 14.64 percent of all local passenger car sales in the first four months, down from 18.53 percent a year ago, KAIDA said.

By Ram Garikipati and newswires (ram@heraldcorp.com)