47 percent of car buyers remain loyal to their brand

47 percent of car buyers remain loyal to their brand

Once a year, Deutsche Automobil Treuhand GmbH (DAT) publishes exact and representative facts about automotive sensitivities in Germany with the DAT report. The regularly published “Topic of the Month” highlights different aspects from the 2021 DAT report. The topic of the month for October deals with the new car buyer of 2020 and their perspective on the car brand. 

With an average investment of 36,000 euros, new car buyers used a variety of criteria as a benchmark for the car. Reliability, appearance and design as well as the purchase price were, for example, the most frequently mentioned points. Many evaluation criteria can be directly related to the brand. 

In their self-assessment, 37 percent of new car buyers in 2020 said that they were absolutely brand loyal. According to them, they always buy the same brand and switching is out of the question. The majority of new car buyers (63 percent), however, considered themselves to be brand switchers. This group is made up, on the one hand, of buyers who are completely open to the brand (20 percent) and, on the other hand, of buyers who choose from two to three brands (43 percent). Broken down to brand level, buyers of German premium brands clearly stood out with a self-assigned brand loyalty of 56 percent. For all German brands it was an average of 47 percent, while buyers of import brands only got 24 percent. 

German premium brands 

However, the actual brand loyalty, i.e. which brand was ultimately purchased, was significantly higher than the self-assessment. On average, 47 percent of new car buyers in 2020 chose the tried and tested brand that they had previously driven, and 53 percent changed their previous brand when purchasing. What is also interesting in this context is the question of whether a car buyer has had positive experiences with one or “his” brand in the past. The statement “I chose the current car brand because I had positive experiences with it before buying it” was confirmed by 53 percent of all new car buyers. For all brands, actual brand loyalty when purchasing is significantly higher than stated in the self-assessment: buyers of German premium brands come to 65 percent (+9 percentage points compared to self-assessment), buyers of all German brands to 60 percent (+13 percentage points). 

The Volkswagen Passenger Car brand is striking here: 63 percent have bought a Volkswagen again, but in their self-assessment only 44 percent were inclined towards this brand. The situation is as follows for buyers of importer brands: 32 percent said they were brand loyal. It was actually 40 percent. It will be exciting to see how the loyalty of the latter will develop. Importers in particular are generating increasing approvals, which suggests that they know how to convince their buyers with attractive and innovative products. 

A few weeks and months after purchasing the car, car buyers were confronted with the following question to determine hypothetical brand loyalty: "Suppose your current car were stolen today and you were to have the full purchase price replaced. Which model would you buy in this case?" The result of 99 percent of new car buyers in favor of the current brand shows that there was a high level of loyalty to the brand and model at that time. If you look at the results of the individual brands, there is a fairly narrow range between 97 and 100 percent. In addition to some German premium and German manufacturers, Korean brands also achieved this complete approval of 100 percent.