Car registration slows

The rise in the number of registered vehicles in Korea slowed down in the first half mainly due to a large drop in new vehicle purchases, the Transportation Ministry said Thursday.

The number of registered vehicles came to 18,661,866 as the end of June, up 1.2 percent from that of 2011 when the number had surged 2.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.

The slowdown was apparently caused by a significant drop in the number of new vehicle purchases, which in January alone fell nearly 19 percent to 148,902 from 183,384 in January 2011.

In the January-June period, the number of new vehicle purchases or registrations dropped by 42,000 units from the same period last year.

The number of imported vehicles, on the other hand, rose 9.5 percent to 680,041, continuing its positive growth since at least 1994 when such data was first made available.

Fuel-efficient hybrid cars also appeared to be gaining popularity in the local market with 54,139 hybrid vehicles registered as the end of June, up from less than 40,000 at the end of last year.

“The number of hybrid vehicles rose by an average 2,683 units a month this year and is expected to continue growing amid high fuel prices,” the ministry said in a press release.

Passenger vehicles accounted for 77 percent of all registered vehicles here at the end of June, of which 82.5 percent were medium or large-sized vehicles, up from 81.9 percent in 2011. (Yonhap News)