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Worst sales in a decade for Honda Korea

  • 기사입력 2013.10.13 16:49
  • 최종수정 2014.05.15 10:37
  • 기자명 신승영


[AutoDaily] Honda Korea is having difficulty selling automobiles. In the last decade of selling cars in Korea, its business has been in decline.
 
In September, Honda Korea sold 324 vehicles. Except for a few other brands like Cadillac(12 vehicles sold), Mitsubishi motors(zero), Porsche(143 vehicles sold), Honda isn't doing to well in Korea. They are ranked twelfth out of thirteen in the import market.
 
In 2008 Their sales were much higher than other imported car manufacturers. Its annual sales in 2008 were 12,356 vehicles sold while BMW Korea(8,396 sold), Mercedes-Benz(7,230 sold), Lexus(6,065 sold) had fewer sales.
 
If you look back at previous years sales you will see that between 2004 to 2008 Honda's sales increased significantly, but in 2009 sales dropped and kept sliding year after year.
 
These are the annual sales records in Korea for Honda motors.
 
■ 2004: 1,475 vehicles sold
■ 2006: 3,912 vehicles sold
■ 2007: 7,109 vehicles sold
■ 2008: 12,356 vehicles sold
■ 2009: 4,905 vehicles sold
■ 2011: 3,153 vehicles sold
■ 2012: 3,944 vehicles sold
■ 2013 until September : 3,900 vehicles sold
 
- 2006 ~ 2008: 500 billion won earnings
- 2009 ~ 2012: 350 billion won loss
 
At the end of last year the Japanese Yen was at a new high so Honda Korea started importing their vehicles from the United States, such as the new Accord and five other models but they still couldn't recover in sales.
 
Some analysts say that the reason that honda's business is declining is because of their sales management team, their low competitiveness in Korea, the rising Yen and no investment in Korea.
 
Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda who is in charge of Toyota, visited Korea several times gave encouragement to all the dealers and workers. He also tried to support everything to resolve the poor sales by supplying cars at a cheaper price than in other countries. These efforts will continue for the foreseeable future.
 
He also mentions that without the dealers Toyota wouldn't exist, so they are doing a wonderful job to bring sales up this year for both Toyota and Lexus.
 
Nissan Korea has also had a difficult time in Korea with an operation deficit of almost 100 billion won.
 
A chief operating officer from Japan came in and encouraged their operations in Korea and also invested a lot of money to revive the market.
 
As a result of the efforts from both Toyota and Nissan they have seen their sales stay about level from last year. This shows that their efforts have been working and will hopefully increase sales in the following years. Toyotas sales this year are almost at 13,000, while annual sales last year were 15,771. While Nissan Korea is seeing sales return to normal this year. Honda on the other hand hasn't received any support from their head office.
 
Honda Korea only has a 200 billion won investment fund now and some of their dealerships have been having slow sales for a long time and shutting down or are considering that option. One dealership in Bun-dang, Gyeonggi-do which is operated by Hugen had been in dispute with Honda Korea finally stopped their operations several months ago.
 
The other Honda dealerships have been operating on a deficit and never seem to get support from the company. Dealers are saying there is no more hope and have a skeptical outlook for their future operations.
 
Meanwhile in the United States the sales for Honda are doing really well. The Accord is No.2 for Midsize cars, the Civic No.3 for Small cars and for SUV's the CR-V is No.1 and loved by customers.
 
 
By Lee Sangwon.
(translate by Lee Jeonghwa)

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