Sales of imported vehicles in Korea surged 17.5 percent last month from a year earlier, helped by aggressive marketing strategies by local car dealers, a trade association said Tuesday.

A total of 8,964 imported vehicles were sold here in June, compared with 7,629 units sold a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association.

Sales in June also represented a 2.1 percent gain from the 8,777 cars sold a month earlier.

“Registration of new imported vehicles rose as automakers rolled out new vehicle models that fueled demand, while several brands lowered prices ahead of the free trade agreement with the European Union going into effect in July,” said Yoon Dae-sung, a KAIDA official.

Cumulative sales of imported vehicles in the first half of the year also soared 23.2 percent on-year to 51,664 units, according to KAIDA, strongly supporting the organization’s earlier forecast that for the first time sales of new imported vehicles here will top 100,000 units this year.

According to the association, German luxury automaker BMW maintained its best selling brand status for the fifth consecutive month since February with 2,083 units sold here last month. This was followed by Mercedes Benz with 1,743 units and Volkswagen with 1,244 units sold in Korea.

By size, vehicles with a 2.0-liter or smaller engine were most popular, taking up 43.9 percent of the market share in June. For the first six months of this year, cars in this engine output category made up 41.9 percent of all imported cars.

By origin, European vehicles dominated the market with a combined 77.8 percent share of the market, followed by Japanese manufacturers with 14.4 percent and U.S. automakers with 7.7 percent, KAIDA said. 

(Yonhap News)