Imported car sales fall 32 pct in March

SEOUL, April 3 (Yonhap) -- Imported vehicle sales in South Korea fell 32 percent in March from a year earlier due mainly to a lack of products, industry data showed Wednesday.

The number of newly registered foreign vehicles stood at 18,078 in March, down from 26,402 a year earlier, the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement.

"Mercedes-Benz Korea and Audi-Volkswagen Korea said they couldn't deliver enough cars to meet demand. Lack of supply weighed on sales last month," a KAIDA spokeswoman said.

The three best-selling models were the Mercedes-Benz E 300 sedan, the Mercedes-Benz E 300 4MATIC sedan and the Lexus ES300h. The ratio of German vehicles fell to 46 percent last month from 60 percent of the imported passenger vehicle market a year earlier, the statement said.

In the January-March quarter, imported car sales dropped 23 percent to 52,161 autos from 67,405 tallied a year earlier, it said.

Imported carmakers accounted for 14.91 percent of all local passenger car sales in the first quarter, down from 18.41 percent a year ago, the spokeswoman said.

kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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