Highlights from the DAT report

Highlights from the DAT report

1. High approval of owning a car: Over 90% of all end consumers surveyed confirmed the statement “Yes, it is necessary to own a car these days”. The top 3 reasons:  Individual mobility, necessity for work/living situation, significant time savings.

2. Critical view of data storage in the car: Only around half of all those surveyed agree with the storage of data that is generated while driving. The top 3 institutions that are likely to have access to this data would be insurance companies, your own dealer, and the automobile manufacturer/importer.

3. The purchase price development of automobiles can keep up with increases in income: An observation over 20 years shows that the respective purchase price of a new or used car has maintained a constant share of the annual available household net income over the years: The new car price has been stable for 20 years at a share of around 60%, the used car price around 30% of the annual available household net income.  

4. Car buyers are quick decision-makers: On average, it only took a used car buyer 33 days from the first active search for information to purchasing the current vehicle. On average, a new car buyer needs around 53 days.

5. High willingness to invest when buying a car: On average, a used car buyer spent 10,620 euros and a new car buyer spent 28,590 euros when buying their car. Both values ​​are significantly higher than the previous year.

6. More used cars were sold through brand dealers: In 2015, 42% and therefore significantly more used cars were purchased from brand dealers than in the previous year (+4 percentage points). Free trade came to 19%. The private market fell from 41% to 39%. For the first time since 1996, brand retailers sold more used vehicles than the private market.

7. High rate of regular customers in the workshops: 81% of the car owners surveyed were regular customers. This is a slight increase of one percentage point compared to the previous year.

For the current DAT (Deutsche Automobil Treuhand GmbH) report, almost 4,000 end consumers were surveyed, including around 1,400 new car buyers, 1,300 used car buyers and 1,200 car owners. In the latter case, repair and maintenance behavior as well as other workshop topics were analyzed. The results refer to Germany, but undoubtedly have a certain relevance for Austria.