Imported commercial car sales fall 3.6 pct in May

SEOUL, June 27 (Yonhap) -- Sales of imported commercial vehicles in South Korea fell 3.6 percent last month on low demand amid an economic slowdown, a trade association said Thursday.

The number of newly registered imported commercial vehicles fell to 345 units in May from 358 a month earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA).

From January to May, imported commercial car sales declined 11 percent to 1,747 units from 1,965 in the year-ago period, it added.

KAIDA began to add sales figures of dump trucks to its existing commercial car sales data in January. Previously, most monthly sales data for imported commercial vehicles didn't include dump truck figures.

For the whole of 2018, the number of imported commercial cars that didn't include dump trucks sold in Korea fell 1.6 percent to 4,394 units from 4,464 a year earlier.

Imported commercial vehicles currently account for a large percentage of the domestic commercial vehicle market, but their exact market share has not been released.

The five major imported commercial car brands -- MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo Trucks, Scania and Iveco -- sell trucks, buses and vans.

kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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