ydooby

Good to hear that South Korea has finally made import cars viable there. Hyundai's got some competition at home now!

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2013/01...amry-wins.html

Hyundai in Shock as Toyota Camry Wins 2013 "Korea Car of the Year" Award

Until recently, South Korea had a taxing policy that made importing cars nigh impossible. It was a means to protect its homegrown automakers, of course, i.e. Hyundai and Kia, from foreign competition. Now, though, it has opened its doors to foreigners, which is fair, as the Koreans face no such restrictions in regions such as North America, Europe or Asia.
Toyota, for one, only entered the South Korean market in 2010. In 2011, it managed to shift 5,020 vehicles. Last year, it more than doubled that number, to 10,795 and, despite the strong competition from German rivals, increased its market share from 4.78 to 8.25 percent.

Its biggest victory, though, came a few days ago when the Camry mid-size family sedan won the 2013 “Korea Car of the Year” award. It was a surprise result, even to the winner: Toyota Korea president Hisao Nakabayashi, who accepted the awards for the Prius and the Lexus GS in fluent Korean, requested a translator for the Camry award as he was overcome with emotion.

“Thank you. I feel great honor to win this award. It is really unexpected”, said Nakabayashi when he accepted the award during the ceremony that took place in Seoul last week.

Incidentally, the Korea Car of the Year award was established by the country’s Automobile Journalist Association the same year that Toyota entered the market. The past two winners were Kia’s K5 in 2011 and the Hyundai i40 in 2012.

Hyundai, which apparently was tipped off about the results, was apparently so shocked by being beaten in its home turf by its Japanese rival that none of its officials attended the ceremony.

A Hyundai official, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Korea Herald: “We are perplexed. It would have been a lot better if a Korean brand won the top prize.” The new Santa Fe that was handed a “special award” probably added insult to injury rather than appease the Korean automaker executives.

Toyota found a way to circumvent the strong yen: it decided that the new Camry, which was introduced last January by company CEO Akio Toyoda personally, would be imported from the U.S. instead of Japan.

The thinking was that, in doing so, Toyota would take advantage of both the Korea-U.S. free trade pact and the favorable won-U.S. dollar exchange rate and keep prices down. They were right: the Camry ended 2012 as the second best-selling imported car in the country behind the BMW 520d.

Hyundai, on the other hand, seeing that imports are encroaching on its market share, has already reduced prices on its flagship models and will ramp up its marketing efforts in its home market.

It may have to face even stiffer competition, though, as other Japanese automakers, which until now were under-performing, are preparing to follow its lead.

“We were definitely encouraged by the award”, commented the PR official of a Japanese automaker who, also, wanted to remain anonymous. “It will hopefully renew the image of Japanese carmakers overall. We are planning aggressive marketing activities this year.”

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http://my.news.yahoo.com/toyota-camr...040002124.html

Toyota Camry named Korean Car of the Year

Toyota Motor's Camry was named the 2013 Korean Car of the Year by the Korea Automobile Journalist Association on Monday, becoming the first import brand to win the industry's top honor.

The Camry sedan earned the highest score of 78.75 points on its value for price, performance, safety and fuel efficiency, followed by BMW's 3 Series and Hyundai Motor's Santa Fe sport utility vehicle.

A total of 32 journalists from different media companies participated in the annual evaluation, which was introduced in 2010. Former winners include Kia Motors' K5 in 2011 and Hyundai Motor's i40 in 2012.

Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover's Range Rover Evoque took the best design prize, while Toyota's Lexus GS and Prius Hybrid topped performance and green-car categories, respectively.

edgeucated

iTrader: (4)

LOL I can't say this didn't make me smile a little bit

spwolf

btw Toyota market share of 8.25% refference there is for Imports only... They sell a lot more cars in South Korea than 120k they import :-)

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

what's awesome is that toyota is bringing u.s. made cars to s. korea. that's good for u.s. economy.

and so glad that s. korea no longer screws import brands.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

you're saying they make some cars in s. korea?

ydooby

Found the story of their testing of the 10 finalists. Surprisingly the ES made it to the top 10 too while the GS didn't.
http://autocstory.tistory.com/4138







EDIT:
Never mind, the GS did get placed #5 overall, with the ES #4.
http://bruprin.tistory.com/1175

spwolf

this sentence made it sound like Toyota had 8% share... it is actually 1% share of overall Korean market.

But it is growing, so thats good.

And of course, it is excellent that it has US cars. I bet new Avalon will be a hit in Korea!

Mr. Burns

The most shocking thing about this is that the Camry is not that great a car.

spwolf

apparently it is :-).

all things taken into consideration.

TRDFantasy

LOL I can think of no sweeter victory for Toyota then humiliating Hyundai and making life tough for them in their own home market.

This is somewhat of a shocking result definitely. Looking at some other recent events however, it's not all too surprising. Recently Hyundai was punished by the EPA and forced to change some of the EPA ratings on their cars as they were misleading. Also the Korean won has been strengthening while the Japanese yen has been weakening.

All of these events making life tough for Hyundai is a result of bad karma. This is karma that Hyundai accumulated over the past several years, and now it's hitting them back hard.

Wrong. Stop believing the internet.

Out in the real world, it IS a great car when you consider everything overall, like spywolf said. That's why the car continues to win awards, and continues to garner high owner ratings and strong sales.

07grIS350

It should be a hit. I love mine. There is a 3 mths waiting in Toronto area. My family likes it more than the RXh
Back on topic, I compared the Camry (V6) and the Optima turbo, the latter won on features at cheaper price, but the former won on refinement base on my short tests.

TangoRed

That is hilarious.

SteVTEC

I don't like it either, lol. My parents have a 2012. The powertrain is buzzy and annoying sounding, the interior looks and feels cheap, and the electric steering is atrocious. It's like it can't adjust the steering in fine enough increments and you have to keep zig-zagging back and forth on the highway. I can't stand it.

It may have "won" but as the article noted there's little foreign competition there. Would it have still won if the new Accord and new Altima and other foreign (US & Japanese) cars were competing also?

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

How self-centered can they be?

They've won the past years. People gave them respect.

Now they don't want to give respect to others? Dishonorable...

spwolf

how do you mean IF? They were competing against all new cars in Korean market, including BMW 3 series and Hyundai Santa Fe, new Kia Cadenza.

And again, you are talking about old model and relating it to new model. :-). Camry is one of the best sellers in the world, there is a reason why.