BMW Korea Celebrates 25th Anniversary, Reaches 574,500 Units Sold Domestically

[Asia Economy Reporter Su-yeon Woo] BMW, which entered the Korean market in 1995, has recorded cumulative sales of 574,500 units in the domestic market over the past 25 years.

According to the '25th Anniversary Commemorative Digital Booklet' published by BMW Korea on the 12th, since establishing the first imported car corporation in Korea in 1995, BMW Korea has sold a total of 574,563 units domestically over the past 25 years until August 2020. This performance includes the premium compact car MINI brand, with BMW accounting for 492,025 units and MINI for 82,538 units.

BMW was the first imported car brand to achieve annual sales of 20,000 units in 2011, followed by 30,000 units in 2012 and 40,000 units in 2014, leading the popularization of imported cars in Korea. From 2009 to 2015, BMW held the number one position in imported car market sales for seven consecutive years, but sales slowed after a large-scale recall due to the diesel car fire incident in 2018. Recently, in August, BMW recorded sales of 7,252 units, achieving the highest monthly sales record since the corporation's establishment and reclaiming the top spot in the imported car market.

Cumulative Sales Volume of BMW Korea from 1995 to August 2020 / Photo by BMW Korea

Over the past 25 years, BMW has invested a cumulative 28 trillion KRW in the Korean market and created 15,570 jobs. There are 28 domestic first-tier suppliers that provide parts to BMW headquarters, and the amount they secured in orders from 2009 to 2019 is approximately 27.3 trillion KRW.

In 2014, BMW invested 89.5 billion KRW to establish the BMW Driving Center, a complex automotive cultural space, and in 2017, invested 130 billion KRW to build a parts logistics center in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province. The Anseong parts logistics center is the largest overseas logistics center of the BMW Group, and the Driving Center, developed as a complex cultural space, was the first of its kind built in Korea. Recently, BMW announced an additional investment plan of 30 billion KRW to expand the current 57,000㎡ Anseong parts logistics center to 88,000㎡.

Hansang Yoon, CEO of BMW Korea, emphasized, "I do not want BMW Korea’s 25 years to be seen only as external growth. Rather than focusing solely on sales volume, we have concentrated on strengthening our fundamentals and will continue to contemplate and strive to establish sustainable brand value."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.