General Motors is considering launching its popular Chevrolet brand in South Korea to capture a larger share of the country’s growing market for imported cars, a company executive has said.
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GM Asia-Pacific executive director of vehicle sales, service and marketing division, James Raymond, told the Associated Press (AP) that the automaker would make a decision on the move after completing a study by the end of this year.
AP noted that GM Korea currently sells Cadillac sedans at 41m to 120m won (US$39,000-$115,000) each and Saab sedans at 37m to 59m won.
Raymond told the Associated Press South Korea has become more important lately because imported vehicles are now claiming a bigger share of the market.
Imported cars accounted for 6.2% of the South Korean passenger car market in April, up from 4.9% a year ago, the news agency said, citing the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association.
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By GlobalDataIn the January-April period, imported car sales jumped 32% year on year to 21,811 units from 16,496.
GM hopes to more than double its South Korea sales this year, Raymond said. It sold about 600 Cadillacs and Saabs last year.
However, AP added, it will be fighting against the market trend. The passenger car market share taken by the ‘Big Three’ US automakers shrunk to 11.7% in the January-April period from 15% in 2004, according to the importers’ association.
GM said that its Cadillac sales have improved compared with last year with the release of new, more fuel-efficient models this year, the Associated Press added.
General Motors Europe (GME) has had notable success with Korean-built Daewoo models since it re-launched them under the famous ‘bow tie’ Chevrolet brand several years ago.
This year, Chevrolet reported a record first quarter in Europe, beating last year’s Q1 by 30,248 units, with total sales of 131,568 vehicles. Market share also grew 0.4 point, to 2.2%, the highest-ever Q1 market share for the brand.
Chevrolet saw its highest volume growth in Russia (where the brand has been particularly popular since launch) and Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Chevrolet doubled its volume by 7,919 cars to first quarter registrations of 15,853.
Until now these models have been sold only under the Daewoo brand in the Korean domestic market.
Most of GME’s markets are supplied with fully-assembled cars from Korea but some local assembly takes place in eastern Europe.
