The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on Dec. 27 that the number of registered imported cars in Korea was 3,166,772 at the end of last month, 12.4 percent of the total vehicle registration, according to BusinessKorea.
The number was less than 600,000 in 2011. It topped one million in 2014 and has risen rapidly since 2015. The registration has topped 200,000 every year since then and topped two million in 2018.
The ratio, which was 8.4 percent in 2017, rose to 9.6 percent in 2018, 10.4 percent in 2019, 11.3 percent in 2020 and 12.1 percent in 2021.
According to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association, 660,893 Mercedes-Benz and 583,705 BMW cars were registered in South Korea at the end of June this year, followed by Audi (227,123), Volkswagen (216,147) and Lexus (127,823).