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Toyota Enters South Korean Market, Home of Hyundai and Kia

inspirion7 submitted on 10/20/2009 Official Bell & Ross Timestamp: 1:36:18 PM

7 user comments | Category: Misc News | Source: | SOURCE: carscoop.blogspot.com

As strange as it may sound, Toyota's namesake brand was absent from the South Korean market, home of its international rival, the Hyundai / Kia Group.

While the world's largest automaker has been active in South Korea since 2000 when it established a local arm and began selling the luxury Lexus brand the following year, up until now, it had not attempted to sell its Toyota branded vehicles in a country where Hyundai and affiliate Kia control over 70 percent of the market.
Toyota said that it has set an initial combined monthly sales target of 500 vehicles, aiming to increase that number to a still-modest 700 units beginning in 2010.


How humbling.


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Toyota Enters South Korean Market, Home of Hyundai and Kia

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inspirion7

"Show me the money" - Cuba Gooding Jr. The bigger the Government, the smaller the man.

— inspirion7 (View Profile)


User Comments

Type707

Hope it passes the DMZ zone.

— Type707 (View Profile)

Posted on 10/20/2009 5:54:12 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

HyundaiSmoke

Hyundai/KIA is moving its factories to cheaper Labor markets Like: the BRIC Nations and Eastern Europe, and markets where they can avoid shipping costs Like: United States, Western Europe, and Canada.

Eventually South Korea will just be for engineering and engine building only. Everywhere else will be the assembly point of origin.

Hyundai is already building a factory in North Korea, though construction has been stopped many times due to nuclear concerns. The Koreans will buy a few Lexus cars and demand Hyundai to be more competitive with Lexus, but Toyotas wont sell well.

Watch, youll see.

— HyundaiSmoke (View Profile)

Posted on 10/20/2009 9:12:26 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 0   

HyundaiSmoke

Korean Spec Hyundais are more on par with Lexus than American Spec models. Hyundai became an upmarket company in Korea a few years before it did in the US. Though, US and Korean Models will be the same spec for now on.

For Example Accents are sold with chrome everything, with Leather, etc.... in Korea. To get those Materials here you would have to special order them like I did. In the future Hyundai will just sell the Korean spec Models here, instead of watering down their models for American sale.

— HyundaiSmoke (View Profile)

Posted on 10/20/2009 9:17:58 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 0   

AudiNewEngland

Who cares!

It's Korea and Hyundai...How much worse could this get?

— AudiNewEngland (View Profile)

Posted on 10/20/2009 10:58:43 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

tango

I wonder if this will further help to ease the tension between Korea and Japan? WW-II has actually ended, after all, in case they didn't notice.

— tango (View Profile)

Posted on 10/21/2009 1:28:45 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

nguyenvuminh

South Korea has protected their market (not just auto but other industries as well) for years. Throw in the historical animosity between Japan and Korea and this only makes the protectionist set up in Korea that much more difficult to overcome. Ordinarily, Japanese are patient enough to get entry into a market and then go full bore but it's a different situation with Korea given the animosity Koreans feel toward anything Japanese so they understand the need to go small.

— nguyenvuminh (View Profile)

Posted on 10/21/2009 1:53:26 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 2   

TurboSpyder

South Korea AND Japan have protected markets. However, the financial collapse has forced Japanese consumers to consider buying less expensive brands that they previously avoided.

— TurboSpyder (View Profile)

Posted on 10/21/2009 2:04:07 PM | | Votes: 1   

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