SEOUL, KOREA - The share of importcars in Korea’s auto market, which has been rising sharply in recent months, is forecast to double up to 27 percent. On October 14, auto and telecom research firm Marketing Insight revealed the results of its large-scale survey it conducted in July.
The survey predicted that if the current trend continues, the import car market share will likely torise to 27 percent. The share of import cars, which stood at less than 1 percentuntil 2001, rose to 1.3 percent in 2002, first in history.
Thereafter, their domestic market share continued on an upward trend, rising to 10 percent in2012 and 14.1 percent in the January-August period of 2014.
The Marketing Insight surveyed 5,582 consumers who purchased new cars over the past one year and analyzed their car purchasing patterns. As much as 83.5 percent repurchased domestic models, while 11 percent shifted toward import cars. Meanwhile, 3.7 percent repurchased import cars and 1.7 percent shifted toward domestic cars from import cars.