Light Vehicle Leasing Market in South Korea, Forecast to 2023

While Favorable Policies Create a Mature Leasing Market, Rising User Demand Causes Leasing Companies to Evolve into End-to-End Mobility Providers

Fleet registration is expected to grow, aided mainly by registrations in the company car fleet. Company cars, which are provided mainly for work purposes in South Korea, are experiencing increased demand from industries and corporate firms. Leasing, comprising operational leasing and financial leasing, is the major sourcing channel for company cars in South Korea. Private leasing has developed strongly over the past four years with the constant growth in several contracts registered annually.

Vehicle leasing is seen as a solution to the growing number of challenges faced by companies with regard to their mobility needs. Amongst others, these include challenges associated with vehicle funding, fleet maintenance, and more importantly, residual risk handling. Businesses in the present market are focused on their core products/services and seek to outsource all other support activities.

Mobility is a significant department - starting from fleet purchase to remarketing at a competitive price - for each segment in the value chain, unless an expert team is on the job, issues such as cost spikes, utilisation mismatches, irregularities in fleet maintenance, and risks of dips in residual value can crop up. Leasing the fleet enables hassle-free mobility, on-demand mobility, and fleet after-service facilities, amongst other benefits.

This has driven the growth of the leasing market, given it a structure, and regulated the ecosystem. This study sheds light on the market size across passenger vehicle (PV) and light commercial vehicle (LCV) segments and provides sales/parc data for the total market and fleet and company car (true fleet) segments. The company car segment is discussed in detail, with a focus on the actual development and the growth potential of financial lease, operational lease, and outright purchase. The analysis takes into account historical data and current market conditions and insights and opinions from market participants to provide a five-year outlook on growth opportunities over 2018–2023.

In addition to market data (PV and LCV) for new registrations and portfolio, the study provides actual competitor data (portfolio) for the leading leasing service providers in the country. Competitor data is available for both the leasing segments (operational and financial) for the base year, 2018. The evolution of any industry depends on factors, such as transformational trends that are linked to the macroeconomic factors of the region and the emerging business models that reflect innovation in mobility solutions, such as rental, car sharing, integrated mobility, and alternative power-train.

The study covers the evolutionary trends expected to shape the market. For leasing providers and other companies that share the leasing ecosystem, interest lies in the growth opportunities that they need to leverage and the strategic imperatives, which will aid their pursuit of growth and success. Overall, the study provides a 360-degree understanding of the leasing space (region-specific) and offers a detailed account of the key trends, market overview, and outlook.