Renault-Samsung's status in South Korea
- Renault-Samsung is a minor player in Korea, both in terms of production with 4% of the local 2019 production (165,000 units out of a Korean total of 3.8 million) and in terms of sales with only 5% of Korean market. Its unique plant in Busan offers a capacity of 270,000 vehicles per year, producing in 2019 seven different models of the Renault-Nissan group:
• Three SUVs: Nissan Rogue, Renault Koleos and Renault-Samsung QM6.
• Four sedans: Renault-Samsung SM3, SM5, SM6, SM7
- But today only 61% of this capacity is used. More over, this utilisation rate has been reached thanks to Nissan Rogue and Renault Koleos models, which are only produced for export (North America for the Rogue and Europe for the Koléos). The Busan plant exports 80% of its production using these two models. The remaining 20% produced are Renault-Samsung models marketed in Korea (QM6, SM3, SM5, SM6 and SM7).
- These models experienced sales decrease from year to year, and only the QM6 (Korean version of Koléos) is still produced at a middle mass volume (close to 60 000 units in 2019). The future of the Busan plant therefore seems very unclear since Renault is not planning to replace the Renault-Samsung sedans which do not meet success on the Korean market. The XM3 (Korean version of the Renault Arkana) has just been put into production in Busan, which could be exported in Europe under the name of Renault Arkana. But even with this new model added to the production lines, the Busan plant will not reach its production capacity limit.
- Indeed, this plant could be used by Nissan as a backup plan of its Sunderland plant (UK), in the case that the Brexit negotiations with Europe put the carmaker in a difficult position. A decision which could be accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis (as South Korea seems to better manage the situation than Europe). Consequently, it is not a non sense to imagine that part of Nissan Qashqai could be also produced in Korea (not totally as the capacity is not high enough).
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