SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's imported car sales rose in single digit last month, driven by strong demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and German luxury models, industry data showed Tuesday.

The number of newly imported passenger car registrations here gained 6.3 percent from a year earlier to 34,904 in September, according to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association.

For the first nine months of this year, 279,729 imported vehicles were sold, up 24.1 percent compared to the same period of last year.

U.S. automaker Tesla took the top spot in terms of automotive sales here among foreign companies by selling 12,372 units.

German automaker BMW came next with the sale of 6,066 units, followed by German carmaker Mercedes-Benz with 5,477 units.

Chinese automaker BYD made a notable impact in fourth place with 2,614 units, followed by Volvo with 1,414 units, Lexus with 1,064 units and Toyota with 971 units.

The number of European models sold here was 17,578 last month, taking up 50.4 percent of the total. U.S., Chinese and Japanese brands recorded the market shares of 36.1 percent, 7.6 percent and 5.9 percent each.

By fuel type, battery-powered EVs accounted for 52.1 percent, followed by hybrid vehicles with 39.0 percent, gasoline vehicles with 8.2 percent and diesel models with 0.7 percent. ■

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