The number of eco-friendly cars in South Korea’s used car market rose 26 percent on-year in the first half of this year due to eased regulations, industry data showed Wednesday.

A total of 7,107 eco-friendly vehicles were offered on the official website of used car dealer SK Encar between January and June this year, up 26 percent compared to 5,644 units listed in the same period last year, the company said.

Hybrid electric vehicles that run on both internal combustion engines and electric propulsion systems were also included in the figure.

“The rise in eco-friendly car sales shows motorists’ growing awareness toward environmental issues,” said SK Encar.

The proportion of the eco-friendly cars among used cars for the company rose 0.2 percentage points on-year to 1.4 percent in the first half of the year, the company said.

Local and foreign carmakers both had more eco-friendly cars registered on the SK Encar website in the first half of this year than the same period last year.

Eco-friendly cars made by foreign companies accounted for 1.8 percent of cars on the SK Encar website. They totaled 1,830 units, up 1.6 percent on-year. Local carmakers made up 1.4 percent, or 5,277 eco-friendly cars, up 1.1 percent on-year for the cited period, according to SK Encar.

“Foreign carmakers offer a wider variety of hybrid lineups, so they made up a bigger portion of the used car market than local companies,” said SK Encar.

In 2016, the top-selling used eco-friendly car made by a local automaker was Hyundai Motor’s hybrid version of its flagship midsize sedan Sonata, while the Lexus ES300h midsize sedan was the best-seller among imported cars offered at SK Encar, the company said.

Meanwhile, the proportion of gasoline cars dropped 3.5 percentage points on-year in the first half of this year and accounted for 49.5 percent of the used cars offered, the company said.

By Kim Bo-gyung (lisakim425@heraldcorp.com)