Apart from some high ticket marques, the data below covers the vast majority of sales. The total market and imports are both down but at this stage of the month I'm not able to say by how much. As a market that heavily favours locally made - both with steep import duty and occasionally other means - it is dominated by a few domestic brands. Kia for now leads but has an ongoing lead change dogfight with Hyundai.
I can only assume the steep import duty is to protect the fragile and vulnerable Korean brands from being overwhelmed by superior foreign ones. Why else would they persist with it? They seem to get treated much more kindly regarding duty when exporting as well.
Hyundai's premium marque Genesis is doing well while KG Mobility (formerly SsangYong) moved into fifth place courtesy of a fast falling Mercedes-Benz. Chevrolet is mainly locally made vehicles and Renault Korea was formerly known as Samsung.
Imports lost two more marques for 2024 in the form of Jaguar and DS. Nissan and Infiniti left in 2020. I did keep Renault sales apart from Samsung but now they are together under Renault Korea. The way some of the brands at the lower end of the list are faring, there may be more to follow.
I used to get Tesla from the internet as best I could but it is now provided by Kaida. It has either jumped markedly or the previous source wasn't reliable. I'll text Elon later to confirm one way or the other.
Some top selling models are the Kia Sorento (57,200), Kia Carnival (51,900), Kia Sportage (45,500), Hyundai Santa Fe (45,000), Hyundai Grandeur (39,650), Kia Selto (34,700) and the Hyundai Avante (31,300).
If you're wondering why Kia has more top selling models and yet trails Hyundai on the list below it's because light commercial vehicles are included and Hyundai is much stronger in that area. Just passenger cars and Kia is the more popular brand.
Data source: Kaida, Kama.
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