Sales of imported light passenger vehicles in South Korea increased by over 19% to 23,272 in May 2020 from 19,548 units in the same month of last year, according to member data released by the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA).

The import sector continued to strongly outperform domestic manufacturers, which saw their combined sales rise by 9.3% to 146,130 units last month.

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Import sales in the first five months of 2020 were up by 12.2% at 100,886 units from 89,928 units a year earlier, with German brands selling a combined 66,257 units or almost 66% of the total.

Mercedes-Benz remained the leading import brand in the five-month period, with sales rising by 8.4% to 28,696 units, followed by BMW with an almost 46% sales rise to 21,361 units as the company continued to recover from a damaging recall campaign in 2018.

Volkswagen has also made good progress in rebuilding its market presence with its five month sales up more than fivefold at 6,097 units while Audi sales rose by over 160% to 6,670 units with the brand rebounding strongly from a 46% decline in the first two months of the year.

Porsche sales were up by over 46% to 3,433 units. 

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Japanese brands continued to suffer from a broad based consumer boycott after a diplomatic spat broke out between the two countries last year.

Combined Japanese sales fell by almost 63% to 7,308 units in the first five months of the year.

Lexus was the best selling Japanese brand in this period with 2,583 deliveries, down over 63% year on year.

Nissan Motor last month announced it would withdraw from South Korea by the end of 2020 as part of a global restructuring plan which included a refocus on larger, more profitable markets worldwide.

The company also cited anti-Japanese sentiment as one of the reasons for quitting the market.