S. Korea’s imported car sale rebounds in July

SEOUL, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s imported car sale rebounded last month due to strong demand for German luxury vehicles, industry data showed Monday.
The number of imported vehicles sold here stood at 21,977 in July, up 4.0 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA).
It turned upward after reducing in single digits in the previous month on solid demand for German luxury models.
For the first seven months of this year, the imported vehicle sale shrank 2.8 percent to 147,629 units compared with the same period of last year.
German automaker BMW ranked first in terms of automotive sales here among foreign companies by selling 6,380 units last month.
Another German carmaker Mercedes-Benz came next with the local sale of 4,369 units, followed by U.S. automaker Tesla with 2,680 units, Volvo with 1,411 units, Lexus with 1,108 units and Porsche with 1,012 units.
The number of European models sold here came to 16,166 last month, accounting for 73.6 percent of the total. U.S. and Japanese brands recorded the market shares of 16.5 percent and 10.0 percent each. ■