Why Korea-made cars lost its popularity in China’s auto market?

When Korea-made cars first entered Chinese auto market in 2002, they won immediate recognition by selling middle-sized 1.6 liter or larger sedans which had attractive price performance ratio. Elantra is one good example for this successful strategy.

However, when China’s local brands began to copy the same strategy and manufacture large-sized cars with better configuration and cheap prices, Korea-made cars, like Dongfeng Yueda Kia Optima and Hyundai NF, began to lose their competitive edge. 

In China’s auto market, the current situation is something like this: Korea-made cars lead the middle-end markets, but they never have the capability to enter high-end auto markets; Japan-made middle and high end cars outnumber their German counterparts, but they never win a place in the top-end car markets. By contrast, German-made cars have monopoly in China’s high-end car-market without any challengers.