South Korea Car Imports 2026: Tesla, BMW and Mercedes-Benz Sales by the Numbers

© A. Krivonosov

South Korea’s import market just changed leaders in dramatic fashion: foreign passenger car sales jumped 37% in June to 38,059 units, up from 29,860 a year earlier. Behind the dry KAIDA statistics lies a bigger shift — electric vehicles and hybrids are now pulling import growth faster than Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, KG Mobility and Renault Korea can hold onto domestic demand.

Importers sold 184,032 cars in the first half of 2026, up 33% from a year earlier. By comparison, Korea’s five major automakers saw domestic sales fall 3% over the same period, to 663,491 units. That gap shows buyers increasingly aren’t just shopping for “an import” — they’re shopping for a specific technology: a battery EV, a hybrid, a premium badge or simply a better-equipped trim — a trend we already flagged in an earlier report on Chinese EVs’ rising import share.

The biggest winner is Tesla. The brand’s deliveries nearly tripled to 56,139 units over six months. That’s about 30% of the entire import segment, and Tesla now outsells BMW, which grew just over 2% to 39,150 units. MINI added 20%, to 4,091 cars, so together BMW Group holds just over 23% of the import market.

Mercedes-Benz looks weaker: sales fell 9% to 29,776 units, even as the brand prepares ten new and updated models for 2026. Volkswagen Group grew 8% to 14,775 vehicles, mostly on the strength of Audi and Porsche. Toyota rose 15% to 5,187 units, and Lexus climbed 3% to 7,819.

Subsidies are a separate story. Korea has introduced a new points-based EV incentive system that now weighs not just range and efficiency but also a manufacturer’s contribution to the local supply chain, environmental standards, safety and service. Tesla is already facing criticism for raising prices after gaining access to the new incentives.

Korea’s example shows how fast a premium market can reshuffle its hierarchy once an EV stops being exotic and becomes the mainstream way to buy “an import.”