· More than half the
mobile users in India planning to buy a car within the year, finds
Vuclip
· 48% of all respondents have a
budget of up to Rs.7,00,000/-
· Women prefer value for
money, men look for cost of cars
· Maruti holds largest
market share among current car owners, though Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Ford, Tata
and Chevrolet register increased brand preferences
· BMW remains
the most preferred luxury car in India in terms of brand perception
Vuclip, the world’s largest independent mobile video
destination unveiled the findings of its mobile surveys on the four wheeler
purchasing forecast and brand sentiments in India. The findings were revealed
during ad:tech Bangalore 2012, held on September 27 at Sheraton in Bangalore.
Vuclip’s Vice President and Head of Advertising, APAC and Middle East, Meera
Chopra, was a panelist on “Integrated Video Planning” where she spoke about how
multi-screen viewing is fast catching up with Indian consumers and the positive
uptake of mobile advertising among Indian brands.
Both the surveys
were administered and delivered through Vuclip’s mobile site, m.vuclip.com, for
duration of eight days each.
BUYING BEHAVIOR
The
purchasing forecast survey included responses from as many as 1,84,786 mobile
phone users from India with 68% respondents being males. The survey, which ran
on 5-13 September 2012, found that 37% of the mobile respondents plan to buy a
new car within 6 months, while 54% of all respondents plan to buy it in the next
one year. 48% of the respondents indicated that they have a purchase budget of
under Rs.7,00,000, while 28% had a budget of Rs.7,00,000-15,00,000. This
indicates a huge opportunity for the small and mid segment car manufacturers to
influence the purchase decision of these prospective buyers by aligning their
product launches to consumers’ preferences. Surprisingly, 39% of all women
respondents had a budget of over Rs.10,00,000 compared to only 31% of all men
having a similar budget to buy a car. Cost was the leading priority in four
wheeler purchase decisions for 15% of the respondents, followed by value, brand,
engine and looks for 12% each of all the respondents. Safety was the priority
for 11% of the respondents while 9% preferred comfort and service plan. Features
mattered most to 8% of all respondents. Though, cost remained the priority for
men (17%), more women looked for value for money (13%) when making a car
purchase decision. A lesser percentage of 12% of all women cited cost as the key
factor, at par with similar percent of women respondents choosing brand,
engine/power, style/looks and comfort.
BRAND
AFFINITY
The brand sentiment survey took into account responses
from 1,09,242 mobile users from India on Vuclip with 67% respondents being
males. According to the findings of brand sentiment survey, served between 9 and
17 September 2012, one in four respondents (24%) claimed to own a Maruti, double
its nearest competitor, Hyundai. Even among most desired car brands, Maruti
emerged as the top choice for 21% of the respondents in India, while there was a
tough competition between Hyundai and Honda with 14% and 11% votes as the
desired brand respectively. Toyota, Ford and Tata were the most desired brands
for 9% each of all respondents.
CURRENT VERSUS
DESIRED
Interestingly, in the current versus desired brand
comparison, Hyundai and Ford registered a growth of two percentage points each
as the desired brand as against the current number of owners of these brands.
Honda, Chevrolet, Toyota, and TATA gained one percentage point as desired brands
as against their existing ownership patterns, while for Mahindra, the existing
versus desired brand percentage remained unchanged.
LUXURY
BRAND PERCEPTION
In the upscale luxury car segment, BMW was the
preferred choice for both men and women, with 29% overall votes, though men
(32%) seemed to like it much more than women (21%). The black horse in the race
for the second most preferred luxury car brand in India came out to be Bentley
(10%), followed by Audi (9%) and Mercedes Benz (9%) which left behind the usual
suspects, Jaguar (8%) and Rolls Royce (8%).
The fight for the second
spot in luxury car brand perceptions was more pronounced based on gender – while
after BMW, Bentley was the clear choice for women (13%), men gave equal weight
to Bentley, Mercedes Benz and Audi (9% each), followed closely by Jaguar and
Rolls Royce (8% each).
Meera Chopra, Vuclip’s Vice President and Head
of Advertising, APAC and Middle East, said “The findings of our surveys reveal
major indicators on car purchase decisions and brand preferences in India. It is
amazing to see how mobile is transforming into a productivity tool, empowering
you with almost instant access to such mass-scale insights from real users. How
else can you activate feedback from 1-2,00,000 respondents in just over a week
to tap market sentiments? With more than 14 million active users in India alone,
our surveys also offer deep demographic insights on the purchase behaviours and
preferences of men and women that could help advertisers, marketers and content
aggregators to generate tailored content as per the need of their target
audience through hyper-local, rich and engaging campaigns that help raise
purchase intent.”
Commenting on the survey findings, Mrs. Sunila Dhar
(DGM (Media & Marketing) MSIL), said “Maruti has always been referred to as
the car of the nation and we take pride in designing our cars keeping in mind
consumers changing needs and preferences – a car for every need. We are happy to
see that Maruti is trending on mobiles too and are confident that Vuclip’s wide
reach and vast network will help brand marketers to get a pulse of what
consumers want and design products accordingly”.
“As product
innovation and differentiation takes foreground, it has become essential for
brands to re-orient their brand engagements to pave way into the customer’s
cluttered mind. Mobile serves as a perfect platform for brand marketers to reach
out to a wide audience in a short timeframe and Vuclip’s technology coupled with
its data insights enables these marketers to devise a novel strategy to connect
and engage with their consumers”, said Mr. Avinash Singh (Media Manager, Maruti
Suzuki India Limited).
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