German car makers increased their market share in the South Korean car import market by almost 6 percentage points. The combined market share of BMW/Mercedes/Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche went up from 57 % to 63,77 %. Together they sold 61,463 cars. Among the competitors Porsche and BMW could achieve the biggest growth in sales.Mercedes E300, BMW 520d and BMW 528i were the three top selling models among all imported cars. Most successful Non-German car maker in the import market is Toyota with 4,500 vehicles sold. While they are not directly competing with German made premium sedans Japanese car makers are also in a good position to increase their sales in Korea. The Nissan Cube has been selling very well and Toyota plans to take advantage of the KORUS FTA by shipping US manufactured Camry sedans to South Korea this year.
Market share of German car makers
Foreign made cars hold a market share of 8 % which translates to roughly 100.000 newly registered vehicles per year. Korea produced 4,2 million cars in 2011, of which 3 million cars were exported and 1,2 million cars sold on the domestic market. The title of best selling domestic car for 2011 went to the Hyundai Avante.
