South Korea’s car output hits 2013 high in October

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Total car output during the month reached 425,577 vehicles, up 7.3% year-on-year.

The rise was due to higher sales to overseas customers, coupled with the normalisation of operation, Kama said.

This brought production for the first ten months of the year to 3.68 million units, down 1.1% year-on-year.

Domestic sales in October surged by 20.7% compared with the previous month, triggered by improving consumer sentiment, increasing demand on recreational vehicle models and enhanced marketing of automakers.

However, on a year-on-year basis, this was down 1.5% due to the high comparison figure related to tax reduction in the fourth quarter of last year.

This put domestic sales through October down 0.7% at 1.14 million units.

Exports in October climbed 9% year-on-year to 280,609 units, riding on full-scale shipment of export-oriented models, normalized supply volume, and improved product quality and brand recognition on Korean brand.

Total exports for the first ten months of 2013 totalled 2.51 million units, a decline of 3.2% from a year earlier.