VW Names South Korea its Third Largest Asian Car Sales Market

Company officials from VW announced that they have designated South Korea as a key Asian market, following China and Japan. "As we judged recently that the market potential of South Korea is large, we designated it as our third key market in the Asian region," a Volkswagen official stated.

Volkswagen hopes to increase annual car sales in South Korea to 5,500 units over the next four years, and is poised to extend annual deliveries to South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy, to 1,500 vehicles in 2005. Volkswagen, the world's fourth-largest automaker, recently decided to take over imports of its cars in South Korea starting next year. The company had previously been selling cars in the region through Gojin Motor Imports since 2000. Gojin will still be Volkswagen's local dealer.

Volkswagon, which first began selling cars to South Korea in 1989, has seen sales decline 12.5 percent year-over-year to 785 units in the January-October 2004 period. VW will be expanding the number of showrooms to 20 over the next five years from the current three.

VW's move follows the launch of the South Korean subsidiary of Audi AG, Volkswagen's luxury model line, in October. Volvo recently announced their decision to increase marketing in South Korea as well. Volvo will be offering the Volvo XC90 in May 2005.