South Korea has a strong car manufacturing industry which is dominated by car makers such as Hyundai, Ssangyong, Kia and Renault Samsung. In spite of domestic competition, Japanese cars by Honda and Toyota are fast becoming popular in Korea. In fact it may be surprising to note that this year some car models like Honda Accord, Honda Civic, and Toyota Camry are sold more in Korea than in Japan. Honda currently holds fifth position in automobile market share in Korea. This report was released recently by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association.
Honda sold 1057 units of Honda Accord (Honda Inspire) in Japan in the first three quarters of this year with an average monthly sales of 117 cars; however, in Korea 1,468 Honda Accords were sold in the same time period with an average sales of 163 units per month. Honda Accords are in short supply this year, and the demand is met by importing Honda Accords from the United States. Honda Civic also had a similar story – 595 units of Honda Civic cars were sold in Korea in the first three quarters of this year, whereas only 90 units were sold in Japan domestic market. Sales performance of Honda CR-V, Honda Legend were also about the same in two countries.
Toyota too had a strong sales performance for some of its models in Korea. When Toyota launched Camry in Korea last month, 327 units of Toyota Camry were sold in just 3 weeks of its launch, however, they could sell only 136 units in Japan in the whole month. Lexus is a popular car in Korea, and this year Toyota also had an impressive sales performance with its Lexus LS460 luxury sedan.
So what is the reason for this strong sales performance of some Japanese car models in Korea? And, why they are not selling much in Japan? The reason is that most of these models are large luxury sedans or mid-size cars, which Korean car buyers find appealing. These cars are not so popular among the Japanese car buyers because of changing trends. Hybrid cars, compacts and light passenger cars are currently dominating the Japanese car market. Japanese are not going for luxury sedans or mid-size cars because of many issues such as expensive parking space and tax incentives for buying hybrids. At present, the best-selling car in Japan is Toyota Prius hybrid electric car, with sales of about 30,000 units per month.
We also regulary export used Japanese cars - including Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Toyota Camry – to our customers in South Korea.
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