The average transaction price for a used car in the first half of 2026 came to 10.66 million won. Compared with 8.22 million won in the same period a year earlier, that is a rise of 2.44 million won, or about 30%. Over the same period, listings registered rose 96% from a year earlier. The figures come from an analysis by the used car trading platform Danggeun Used Cars of its own transaction records, and are not statistics representing the entire domestic used car market.
The average transaction price for internal combustion vehicles in the first half was 9.84 million won, while eco-friendly vehicles, covering hybrids along with electric and hydrogen cars, came to 25.19 million won. The gap is two and a half times. In transaction growth as well, electric vehicles rose 111% and hybrids 132%, ahead of diesel at 51% and gasoline at 58%. When more expensive cars sell in greater numbers, the average naturally goes up.
The share of the increase in the average price accounted for by the shift in vehicle mix and the share accounted for by price rises in the same models are difficult to separate out from the published figures alone.
Views of hybrid listings in the first half rose 54% from a year earlier. In May, views of the BMW i3 jumped 3,251%, and in June, the Hyundai The All-New Santa Fe Hybrid jumped 2,659%. Growth in saves ran in the order of the Casper EV at 180%, the Tesla Model Y at 53% and the Ioniq 5 at 31%. These view and save figures do not specify whether the comparison point is the same month a year earlier or the preceding month, so the magnitudes themselves should be taken with caution.
The Hyundai Porter II ranked first in first-half transactions and the Chevrolet Spark second, the same order as the previous year. The Kia All New Morning, New Morning and Hyundai Grandeur HG followed. The Mercedes-Benz E-Class rose 128% and moved from 33rd to 18th, and the Kia Carnival KA4 rose 101% and moved from 19th to 12th.
Domestic minicar sales in the first half were 44,641 units, up 11.5% from a year earlier. The same material puts this growth rate at 10% in one place, so whether it is in the high single digits or the low double digits will be settled only by checking the figures from the original compiling body. The Kia Morning surged 82.1% to 11,995 units. The Ray sold 24,380 units, the best-selling Kia passenger model, though it was down slightly from a year earlier.
Delivery of the Ray takes 6-10 months, and the Casper takes about two years from contract to handover. The latter comes from industry accounts and is hard to treat as a confirmed official figure.
The BYD Dolphin sold 2,828 units in June alone, ranking second among imported models by sales. BYD as a whole sold 4,652 units in June, fourth among import brands. Its first-half cumulative total was 11,675 units, about ten times the level of a year earlier.
Hybrids or electric vehicles are the better option for easing the burden of fuel costs, but new car prices are hard to bear, and so one group turns to used eco-friendly vehicles and another to minicars and low-priced imported electric vehicles.
Trends in the second half may change depending on oil prices, installment interest rates and the state of electric vehicle subsidy payouts. If waiting times for minicar deliveries shorten, there is room for the increase on the new car side to narrow. The next checkpoints are the first-half registration statistics and third-quarter sales results. The figures available now stitch together a single platform and monthly results, so measuring the size of the shift in consumption will require waiting until the full ownership transfer data is released.
