Seoul, Dec 3
Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea jumped 23 per cent in November from a year earlier, buoyed by strong demand for Tesla and German models, industry data showed on Wednesday.

New registrations of imported cars rose to 29,357 units last month from 23,784 a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA), reports Yonhap news agency.

The three bestselling models in November were the Tesla Model Y, the Mercedes-Benz E200 sedan and the Tesla Model Y Long Range, the data showed.

Sales of Tesla vehicles more than doubled to 7,632 units from 3,618 a year earlier.

By fuel type, hybrid vehicles accounted for 51 per cent of monthly sales with 15,064 units, followed by electric vehicles (EVs) at 37 per cent, gasoline models at 10.9 per cent and diesel cars at 1.1 per cent.

From January to November, imported vehicle sales climbed 16.3 per cent to 278,769 units, up from 239,764 in the same period last year.

Three German automakers -- Volkswagen Group Korea, BMW Group Korea and Mercedes-Benz Korea -- sold a combined 155,292 units in the first 11 months, up 3.2 per cent from 150,447 a year earlier.

German brands accounted for 6 out of every 10 imported vehicles sold in South Korea during the 11-month period.

Meanwhile, the data protection regulator said Wednesday that e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. did not properly notify its customers of its recent major data breach, demanding a corrected notification of a personal information "leak" from an "exposure" of such data.

The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) made the decision in an emergency meeting after the company said last week personal information of 33.7 million customers had been compromised, including names, addresses and phone numbers.

While Coupang notified affected users of the breach, the PIPC said the company merely described it as personal information being exposed when it was aware that such data had been leaked.

The regulator said Coupang also partially omitted types of data affected while announcing the breach on its website for just one to two days.

Imported car sales in S. Korea jump 23 pc in Nov