The Korean auto market has not suffered from the lockdown
- South Korea has been relatively unaffected by the coronavirus, as health security measures were put in place there very quickly. Another consequence of the good management of this crisis was that no lockdown was imposed in Korea, unlike China, Europe and the United States, which prevented the local automotive market from collapsing as in these countries due to plant and dealerships closures.
- The graph below on the right shows that the Korean market did not decline in April-May 2020, since it exceeds the pre-crisis level and even the month of June saw a clear catch-up which compensates the figures of January-February which were a little weak. Thus, over the first 7 months of 2020, the Korean market (passenger cars and light utility vehicles) is growing by 6.9%.
- However, the automobile production in Korea has not been able to prevent a decline in its volumes. The decrease observed in January-February 2020 (-29.6% and -27.6%) and especially in April-May (-23.1% and -38.1%) is explained rather by a lower external demand than by a drop in sales on the national land. The April and May lockdown months were indeed particularly difficult in Europe and the United States, which caused a collapse of sales in these regions, including those of Korean models.
- However, since June 2020, the Korean auto production has returned to its last year level and the coming months should confirm this trend. Over the first seven months of 2020, the production volume in Korea fell by 21.1% compared to -36.7% in Europe, -29.4% in the United States, -28.5% in Japan and -11,6% in China.
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