• Korea is Mercedes-Benz’s 4th biggest market worldwide
• Sedans still see strong demand in Korea
• Korea has been the world’s biggest market for the E-Class since 2018

More than 200,000 units of the W213 generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class has been sold in South Korea since the model was launched there in 2016. It’s the first imported car in Korea to reach that milestone.

Since its launch, the W213 E-Class has been Korea’s No.1 selling imported car.

Last year, the home of K-pop became sold 80,976 units of Mercedes-Benz cars, propelling it to fourth place in the hierarchy of the biggest Mercedes-Benz markets worldwide. Along the way, Korea also overtook UK to move up one spot.

Korea now accounts for 4 percent of Mercedes-Benz models sold worldwide, behind first place China (37 percent), USA (15 percent), and Germany (11 percent).

Globally, the Mercedes-Benz GLC is the three-pointed star brand’s best-selling model, but not in Korea.

The reason the E-Class sells better in Korea than in the company’s home ground in Germany is simply because Korea is one of the few major car markets in the world where sedans are still preferred over SUVs.

Even amongst domestic Korean brands, sedans still outsell SUVs. Kia for example, still retains 4 sedans in its line-up: K3, K5, K8, and K9.

This is not to say that SUVs are not popular there, but sedans still see very strong demand, especially in the higher-end segments.

In fact, the best-selling passenger car there in 2022 is the Kia Sorento (68,902 units), but the Hyundai Grandeur, a mostly Korea market-only full-size E-segment sedan sitting above the Sonata, came in very close with 67,030 units.

If you’re wondering why the trendy Koreans are not adopting SUVs as fast as the Americans or Europeans, the answer is despite Korea’s soft-power leadership in pop culture and fashion, the country is a actually very conservative market, at least that’s still true for cars.

Even the trendiest and most fashionable Korean executive will only buy sedans in one of the four socially acceptable colours – white, black, grey, or silver. The guy who turns up at a chaebol’s parking lot in a dark blue sedan will be seen his peers to be projecting a hint of rebellious streak, and that sort of individuality is not viewed positively in the highly rigid Confusion culture that places great emphasis in conformity to maintain social harmony.

The E-Class' combination of respect for tradition, pursuit of technology, and stately road presence is deeply appreciated by Korean buyers. This Goldilocks-like near-perfect balance is not a coincidence.

Thomas Klein, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Korea told the Korean media, “The attention that Korea gets worldwide, I think it is still largely underestimated in Korea. There’s a department in Stuttgart that does nothing else but transport and transform the demands of South Korea into the organization in German to ensure that what we get here as products and services meet the very demanding Korean customers’ expectations.”

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