The year 2015 seems to be seeing a renaissance of imported cars in Korea as the number of foreign cars sold here in a month exceeded 20,000 for the first time.

Now all eyes are on whether imported cars can take up 20 percent of the domestic car market, the lion’s share of which ― nearly 70 percent ― is held by domestic juggernauts Hyundai and Kia as well as other local players including GM Korea, Renault Samsung and Ssangyong. 

According to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association, 22,280 units of imported cars were newly registered in March, up some 32.9 percent from a month before and up 41.6 percent from March 2014.

The German cars showed stellar performance. The biggest seller was BMW with 4,003 units followed by Audi’s 3,895, Mercedes-Benz’s 3,639 and Volkswagen with 3,264, whose accumulated sales made up more than 70 percent of the total. The best-selling models were the Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0 TDI BlueMotion with 1,046 units sold, followed by 805 units of the Audi A6 35 TDI sold and 792 of the Audi A6 TDI Quattro.

Other notable brand sales were Ford/Lincoln with 924, Lexus’ 749, MINI’s 723, Land Rover’s 680 and Chrysler/Jeep’s 629. Superluxury cars Bentley and Rolls-Royce reported sales of 40 and six, respectively.

Market observers cautiously estimate that imported cars may exceed 20 percent of new-car registrations in the near future. Foreign cars took 17.3 percent of the newly registered in January and February, up about 3.4 percentage points from 13.9 percent throughout 2014.

“Taking account of the rapid pace, imported cars may exceed 20 percent of the newly sold cars by the end of the year,” an onlooker said.

Carmakers are also preparing for their best sales record yet. KAIDA suggested the year’s annual sales at 215,000 units, up 9.5 percent from 196,359 in 2014, but other industry officials predict an even higher figure.

“We used to follow KAIDA’s advice in setting our sales record. At the beginning of the year, the association gave us around 5-10 percent. But I think we could be more hopeful than that,” a PR officer of a foreign carmaker said.

“More people are looking for different things to be different from other people. This is why people are looking for foreign cars,” said Yoon Dae-sung, executive at KAIDA, predicting a rosier future. “Foreign cars have over 450 different models. This gives the customers a lot of options.”

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)