Toyota Enters South Korean Market, Home of Hyundai and Kia

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.

Read Article

Type707 - 10/20/2009 5:54:12 PM

+2 Boost

Hope it passes the DMZ zone.

AudiNewEngland - 10/20/2009 10:58:43 PM

+2 Boost

Who cares!

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

tango - 10/21/2009 1:28:45 AM

+1 Boost

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.

nguyenvuminh - 10/21/2009 1:53:26 AM

+2 Boost

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.