How the auto market is changing, imports from South Korea triple in January-July

2024-08-16 07:24:00, Ekonomi CNA

How the auto market is changing, imports from South Korea triple in January-July

Illustrative photo

South Korea has returned to the second place from where Albania imports used cars, leaving behind Germany or Switzerland.

Official data show that 17.4 percent of the tools that were imported during January-July 2024 belong to this country with a significant increase compared to January-July 2023 when they accounted for 7 percent of the total.

The number of vehicles imported from South Korea has increased by more than 3 times, where from about 2956 they have already reached 10.6 thousand vehicles. The increasing trend of imports from Korea is clearly observed even with the naked eye by an increased number of importing agencies and sponsored advertisements on their social networks.

The only country that still leads imports, leaving behind Korea, is Italy, from which imports have a weight of 18.2 percent, or 11.1 thousand vehicles in January-July. In third place comes Germany with 17.2% (10.5 thousand vehicles) and then Switzerland with 9.1%, USA with 6.7%, China with 5.7% (see graph: Imports of vehicles, by country, 7 months).

Why is South Korea dominating the market?

The trend of imports from South Korea appears at first sight to follow a global trend of stimulating environmentally friendly vehicles. Government policies encourage the use of the newest vehicles, mainly electric or hybrid ones. This has led to the rapid elimination of the use of combustion vehicles, promoting their sale.

Used cars from Korea come at a significantly more economical price than those from Europe, which skeptics attribute to the effect of less strict standards of tools than those in the EU, while another argument is the cheaper cost of labor.

Despite the dilemmas, it seems that imports from South Korea remain very active and the favorable prices are encouraging Albanians to turn more and more towards them. There are two ways to purchase: either by ordering online and paying the inspection and shipping fee to the agency or by purchasing directly from the agencies a vehicle provided by them.

According to Korean media, there is a significant increase in used car exports. “Outbound shipments of used passenger cars will reach $4.44 billion in 2023, up 66 percent from a year earlier, according to data compiled by the Korea Used Car Export Association. In terms of units sold, the figure reached 555,549, increasing by 68 percent during the period.

Gasoline cars accounted for the largest share at 67.5 percent, followed by diesel cars at 30.3 percent and hybrid models at 1.3 percent. Exports of hybrid cars also hit a new record, with their exports rising 82 percent compared to 2023 to $124.2 million,” the Korea Times wrote.

Official data

Vehicles registered for the first time in the country, purchased either through importers or concessionaires, recorded an increase in July as well. The data published by the General Directorate of Road Transport Service show that the seventh month of the year also set a record in relation to the previous months. "July 2024, record number of first-time registrations for 2024, of 10,724 registrations! 34 percent more registrations compared to July 2023.

About 24% registrations compared to December 2023, which was the best month of the last 5 years" is underlined in the publication of the DPSHTRR. According to the data, the period January-July 2024 counts 61,081 registrations among which 83% of the total are cars. This marks 117% more registrations compared to January-July 2019 and 45% more compared to January-July 2023. DPSHTRR notes that vehicle registrations for the first time have influenced the renewal of the fleet in the country as a good part of them are of the last generation.

"The fleet is renewed with 10,610 vehicles of the last generation, 0-3 years: 174% more registrations compared to January-July 2019 and 66% more registrations compared to January-July 2023.

As the best month of 2024 and of the period 2019-2024 for first-time vehicle registrations, DPSHTRR instructs all new and existing drivers: Respect the traffic rules; Carry out periodic checks of the vehicle; Before importing a vehicle, perform the "Environmental Category Verification"" underlines DPSHTRR./ Monitor Magazine