Sales of imported light passenger vehicles in South Korea jumped by almost 26% to 22,945 in April 2020 from 18,219 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 just 6.5% to 145,141 units last month.

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Import sales in the first four months of 2020 were up by 10.3% at 77,614 units from 70,380 units a year earlier, with German brands selling a combined 50,367 units or almost 65% of the total.

KAIDA spokeswoman Park Eun-seok said in a statement "new models released by Audi and Volkswagen and increased supplies and marketing activities by Mercedes-Benz helped drive up sales of imports in April". 

Mercedes-Benz remained the leading import brand in the four month period, with sales rising by 8.6% to 22,145 units, followed by BMW with an almost 59% sales rise to 16,454 units as the company continued to recover from a damaging recall campaign in 2018.

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Volkswagen also made strong progress in rebuilding its market presence, with sales rising more than tenfold to 4,880 units, while Audi sales were more than 75% higher at 4,492 units with the brand rebounding strongly from a 46% decline in the first two months of the year.

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Porsche's four month sales were up by 12.1% at 2,396 units. 

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 5,636 units in the first four months of the year.

Lexus was the best selling Japanese brand with 1,856 deliveries in this period, down by over 67% year on year.