S.Korea’s car exports hit H1 record high on brisk EV sales

South Korea’s automobile export value in the first six months of this year hit the highest-ever $35.7 billion for a half-year period, mainly driven by a surge in demand for the country’s eco-friendly cars abroad especially in the US and Europe.

Korea’s automobile exports in the January-June period jumped 46.6% on-year to $35.7 billion in value, breaking the country’s previous record first-half car exports of $25.2 billion in 2014, according to data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday.

Combined with exports of auto parts, outbound shipments from the country’s auto industry in the cited period reached $47.3 billion.

The latest data suggests that the Korean auto industry’s total exports, including both vehicles and auto parts, for the whole of 2023 would reach $80 billion, said the trade ministry.

ECO-FRIENDLY CARS LEAD

The upbeat results were mainly led by a 70.4% on-year leap in the country’s green car export value to $12.4 billion.

Korea shipped 385,000 units of eco-friendly cars -- electric vehicles, hybrid cars, plug-in cars and hydrogen vehicles -- to overseas markets, meaning that one out of every four vehicles exported in the first half of this year was a green car, according to the ministry data.

EVs led the pack, with total sales of 182,000 units in the same period, accounting for 47.4% of the country’s entire green car exports.

They were followed by hybrid cars selling 163,724 units (42.6%), 38,465 plug-in cars (10%) and 236 hydrogen fuel-cell cars (0.06%).

The strong demand for Korean EVs helped Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor Co. report its best car sales results in the UK in five years in the first half of this year.   

Hyundai Motor sold 22,821 green cars in total in the UK over the cited period, ranking fourth for such vehicle sales there. Of its total green car sales in the country, 7,276 of the units sold in the period were EVs.

Its new car sales in the UK also added 13.3% on-year to 46,351 units, the highest figure since 2018 and ranking eighth among all car brands in the country, with a market share of 4.9%.

Demand for Korean cars in the US also remained strong.

The combined US sales of Korea’s two biggest carmakers Hyundai Motor and its sibling Kia Corp. hit a record high of 788,946 units in the first six months of this year, up 16.5% from the prior year. The previous record was 785,646 units posted in the first half of 2021.

RECOVERY IN CAR PRODUCTION

The country’s overall car production also improved over the same period thanks to a recovery in global automotive chip supply.

Korea churned out about 2,198,000 vehicles in the first half of this year, expanding 23.5% from a year ago and returning to pre-pandemic production levels of more than 2 million units in four years, the trade ministry said.

In June alone, the country’s total car production stood at 370,284 units, 12.8% higher than the same month last year on eased car supply bottlenecks at home and abroad, especially in North America and Europe.

Monthly car export value last month also zoomed 58.3% to $6.2 billion, staying in the $6 billion range for four straight months. Of the total, outbound shipments of eco-friendly cars stood at $2.2 billion, nearly double the same month of last year.

Korea’s car exports to North America in June reached their highest-ever $3.1 billion, followed by $1.0 billion shipments to the EU, $581 million to Asia, $444 million to the Middle East and $429 million to non-EU countries in Europe.

Write to Han-Shin Park at phs@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.