Registrations for 2022 -2.5% on the corresponding period of 2021. The '+/- diff' column below is for market share change.
The data is for cars and light commercials. Kia overtook the usual leader Hyundai but there is nothing in it. Genesis is comfortably ensconced in third place where it will stay indefinitely. BMW and Mercedes have pushed Ssangyong and Samsung out of third and fourth. In reality, they haven't though as Hyundai and Kia did that, being their true competitors.
Green shading shows market share gain and looking at the chart, we see that the biggest brands and some premium ones are increasing in that regard while smaller ones are declining. The reason is clear, excessive protectionism with mainstream imports, in particular, having all but disappeared.
Mainstream imports have little chance of survival here with import duty killing them, only premium import marques can cope with that. Subaru left in 2012, Mitsubishi a year later, Fiat in 2017, Nissan and Infiniti in 2020. Citroën has now stopped selling here and DS registrations are down to a dribble. I wonder if Jaguar might as well go, being outsold by Rolls Royce and blown into the weeds by Bentley.
Tesla had a relatively poor year in Korea and what I read in the Korean media, they are making the most of it. The focus is on price cuts to show how Tesla has struggled with sales globally in 2022 but that's about tarnishing a reputation unfairly. Sales for the year globally were strong and I see it as maintaining momentum going into a challenging year.
Polestar has arrived and did well in a short space of time. Both Bentley and Lamborghini had a good year so they need to watch their backs. A few smaller exotic brands don't report sales but otherwise, that is a complete list. That said, it's not a long list for reasons already mentioned.
Data source: Kama, Kaida.
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