Imported car sales in South Korea posted the new record monthly high of 10,648 vehicles in March due to brisk sales of new models, a local trade association said Wednesday.

Sales of imported cars in March increased 3.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributers Association (KAIDA). For the first three months of this year, imported auto sales amounted to 29,285 vehicles, up 13. 9 percent over the same period of last year.

From a month before, imported car sales surged 15.8 percent due to continued demand for new models manufactured by luxury foreign automakers.

"The March figure marked the new monthly high due to the popularity of some new models and the delivery of the standby car orders," said Yoon Dae-sung, executive director of KAIDA.

German automaker BMW ranked first in terms of best-selling brand last month with 2,560 vehicles sold here. This was followed by Mercedes Benz with 1,746 units and Volkswagen with 1,308 units. Audi moved up to the fourth place with 1,246 units, but Toyota fell to the fifth place with 876 units due to weak sales of its Camry model.

The most popular model was BMW 520d with 778 units sold last month to beat E300 made by Mercedes Benz with 482 units sold. It was followed by BMW 320d with 449 units sold. Toyota's Camry, which ranked first in February, slid to the fourth place in March with 449 units sold.

By size, vehicles with an engine capacity of 2-liter or less were most popular, posting 48.3 percent market share in March. This was followed by cars with an engine displacement of between 2 and 3 liters that account for 32.3 percent of market share.

By origin, a total of 7,953 European cars were sold here last month, taking up the market share of 74.6 percent. It was followed by Japan with 18 percent market share and the United States with 7. 3 percent.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet