News / South Korea's second-hand car trade now prefers to ship in a box

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Containers have surpassed the traditional car-carrier vessels as the preferred means for shipping used-cars from South Korea.

Statistics compiled by Incheon Port Authority (IPA) show that in the first seven months of 2025, containers were used to transport 80% of used-cars from Incheon, the country’s main export hub port for shipping second-hand models.

In 2022, only 34% were exported in boxes.

Declining container rates and a shortage of car-carriers (due to newer ships being deployed to meet growing demand for electric vehicles) are behind the switch, which began in 2023.

IPA statistics show that, of 303,416 used-cars exported from Incheon in 2022, containerships carried 102,014 (34%), with 201,402 shipped in car-carriers. However, the situation reversed the following year, when out of 502,028 used-cars exported, 302,361 went in containers (80%) and 99,667 in car-carriers.

Similarly, last year, of 478,598 used-car exports, 382,410 (80%) were moved in containers and 96,188 in car-carriers.

And from January to July this year, out of 389,678 vehicles, 314,699 (81%) were moved in containers and 74,979 in car-carriers.

IPA noted that, after Covid, the recovery of new car production and the expansion of electric vehicle production overlapped, leading to a sharp rise in car-carrier charter rates. At the same time, as the global supply chain stabilised, container freight rates corrected from the pandemic-induced boom.

IPA also noted that used-car exporters could be leveraging on liner operators to reach out to emerging markets.

While car-carriers delivered used-cars to traditional markets in the Middle East, Europe and South America, containerised models were unloaded in China before being delivered by rail to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Furthermore, with the increase in car-carrying vessel sizes, the latest are too large to access the Incheon Inner Port pier, which handles the majority of second-hand automobile exports. The pier can only berth ships of up to 50,000 gross tonnes.

In addition, the older, conventionally fuelled, car-carriers are being phased out as shipping continues its decarbonisation drive. While new car-carriers are being built, they are being deployed to move electric vehicles to meet the growing demand.

IPA director of logistics strategy Park Won-geun said: “The shift in transportation methods is fundamentally due to global capacity constraints and changing cost structures, rather than differences in national distribution.”