The coronavirus pandemic has impacted every industry in some shape or form over the last twelve months. How has this reality changed the rate at which consumers purchase cars? What’s the trajectory up through 2021? A lot of information on car buyer statistics is already available on the subject, from which predictions about the coming months can be made. Let’s take a closer look:
Statistics for Car Sales
There’s nothing surprising about the significant dip in automobile sales throughout 2020. Toyota has demonstrated itself to be an important brand wielding a considerable portion of the market share. Larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks are becoming more popular across the board. These kinds of models have improved their market share over multiple years, averaging an increase of 1.5%.
Light trucks outsold every other type of car in January 2020. Ford’s F-Series of trucks were sold the most, with Chevrolet’s Silverado coming in second. For SUVs, the best sellers in January 2020 were the Chevrolet Equinox, the Honda CR-V, the Toyota Rav-4, and the Nissan Rogue.
These car buyer statistics show some 9 million new models were sold in 2020, an 8% decline from the previous year. The year 2020 exhibited higher interest rates and the highest average price for transactions on record.
2020 saw some 34.1 million used cars, while 40 million units were sold in 2019. 2 million used cars found new owners in 2020, while 2.8 million were sold in 2019. As far as fleet vehicles are concerned, 1.3 million were sold in 2020, compared to 3.2 million units the year before. In the beginning of 2020, the price paid for a light vehicle in the U.S. averaged out to $37,851 – a 3.5% increase compared to 12 months before that, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Consumers in 2020 made it more commonplace to browse the web for new and pre-owned cars. The lion’s share of research prior to buying a car has been conducted online as opposed to in person.
More focus is being directed towards affordability and quality, and to that end, used cars are receiving more attention. It’s also becoming more common for favorable deals to be initiated by customers. Consumers are taking less time to make purchases – 89 days, as opposed to 118 days in the year 2017. They’re likely to be more concerned about lack of reliability, lease expiration, and damage to the vehicle. The rate of lease penetration in 2020 was 24%, a slight dip from 2019.
47% of American consumers intend to hold on to the car they have now for longer than originally intended. The intention to purchase an automobile is estimated to be 14% below pre-COVID levels.
Due to the preponderance of consumers who are low on funds, there’s a possibility that pre-owned care may be moving to replace the role of entry-level models. New consumers seem less enthusiastic about their purchases and the entire process in general. A reported 62% of buyers are content with browsing for a new vehicle, with 60% of those shopping for a used care rating themselves as satisfied.
Purchasers of used cars are spending more time doing research and perusing models online. 30% of them valued quality above all else. The next most valued attribute was affordability, at 21%.
A full third of purchases who don’t currently own a car intends to obtain one within half a year; 45% of them are millennials. Of these likely buyers, a third of them feel their plans have been sped up due to the virus. In the post-COVID world, some 78% are more than likely going to use their car to travel. COVID has also seemingly resulted in an increase in vehicles bought due to the urge to abstain from using mass transit.
From these car buyer statistics, it’s clear that the era of COVID-19 may have permanently changed some aspects of purchasing vehicles. While it’s inevitable that sales will continue to improve as the battle against coronavirus turns in favor of mankind, some trends are possibly here to stay for the long run. Specifically, the presence of online buyers will likely remain for purposes of convenience. Car companies and dealers will have to learn to accommodate these new trends. To learn how you can capitalize visit our website or contact us.