As Electric Vehicle Subsidies Are Released... March Online Car Purchases Hit Record High

With the government's electric vehicle subsidy payments starting, the amount spent on purchasing cars and car accessories online in March reached an all-time high.

According to the 'Online Shopping Trends' released by Statistics Korea on the 1st, the total transaction amount on online shopping malls in March was 20.4523 trillion KRW, a 9.1% increase compared to the same month last year. Among online shopping, mobile shopping transactions amounted to 15.0844 trillion KRW, a 9.6% increase.

By product category, the purchase amount for cars and car accessories reached 647.3 billion KRW, marking a record high. This is a 79.3% increase compared to the same month last year. It is analyzed that the increase in electric vehicle sales, following the government's confirmation of electric vehicle subsidy guidelines (February 20) and the start of subsidy payments, led to the rise in transaction amounts.

On the 6th, at 'EV Trend Korea' held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Kia Ray EV is demonstrating electric charging. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

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The transaction amount for agricultural, livestock, and fishery products recorded 1.0347 trillion KRW, a 26.6% increase compared to the same month last year. As prices for food items such as fruits and vegetables rose to burdensome levels, demand likely shifted to online purchases where items could be bought somewhat more affordably.

Meanwhile, for the entire first quarter of this year, the total online shopping transaction amount was 59.6768 trillion KRW, a 10.7% increase compared to the same period last year. In particular, online overseas direct purchases amounted to 1.6476 trillion KRW, a 9.4% increase compared to the same period last year, marking the largest scale for any first quarter on record.

By country, the amounts were 938.4 billion KRW for China, 375.3 billion KRW for the United States, and 142.1 billion KRW for the European Union (EU), in that order. Compared to the same period last year, purchases from China (53.9%) and other Asian countries (87.0%) increased significantly, while those from the United States decreased by 19.9%.

As a result, China's share increased by 16.5 percentage points from 40.5% in the first quarter of last year to 57.0% in the first quarter of this year. This is the largest share since the related statistics began to be compiled.

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