Tesla remained South Korea's top-selling imported car brand in October, while Mercedes-Benz overtook BMW to reclaim second place.
According to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA), Tesla sold 9,165 vehicles. Despite retaining the top spot, its monthly sales fell below 10,000 units for the first time in seven months.
Mercedes-Benz ranked second with 6,744 vehicles sold, returning to the position for the first time in eight months. BMW slipped to third.
Volvo Car Korea and BYD placed fourth and fifth with 1,682 and 1,594 vehicles, respectively. Rounding out the top 10 were Lexus with 1,346, Toyota with 1,038, Volkswagen with 950, Porsche with 768 and MINI with 704. Zeekr, which began customer deliveries in October, recorded its first monthly sales total of 129 vehicles.
By model, the Tesla Model Y Premium led all imported vehicles with 5,501 units sold in October. The Model 3 ranked third with 2,199.
Cumulative imported car sales from January through October surpassed 310,000 vehicles, exceeding the total for all of last year. While combined domestic sales by South Korea's five automakers fell 7.1% year on year to 1,053,585 vehicles, new imported car registrations rose 24.6% to 310,846.
