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Customer LoginsLos Angeles DMA - diverse automotive market summary
To help automotive customers gain insight into the impact diverse market customers (African American, Asian and Hispanic) are having on the U.S. light vehicle industry, this is the third installment in a series of blogs focused on the Top 10 U.S. markets based on volume year-to-date (YTD) through June 2011. The focus of this blog is the Los Angeles market, also known as the "City of Angels" or simply put "LA."
This market could also be referred to as "Home of Asian OEMs," with nine of the 12 U.S. Asian brands headquartered in the areas as follows: Acura, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Lexus, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Toyota. The only Asian light vehicle OEMs that are not headquartered in the LA area are Subaru (Cherry Hill, NJ) and recent transplants Nissan and Infiniti who relocated to Nashville, TN.
Los Angeles ranks No. 2 overall in the country based on new light vehicle sales YTD. The overall industry is up 17.5% comparing 2011 June YTD vs. 2010 YTD registrations. During the same period, LA's gain is approximately four percentage points above the national average (at 21.5%). LA's share of national new vehicle sales is down .17 percentage points at 5.3%. LA's Top 10 brand list is very diverse as it includes Asian brands (50%), European brands (30%) and Domestic brands (20%) as shown in the adjacent table.
Similar to the area's Top 10 brand list, the consumer mix in LA is very diverse, with ethnic consumers representing 43% of new vehicle sales. With Hispanics leading the way, all communities positively contributed to LA's 21.5% year-over-year increase. See the adjacent pie chart, which depicts the current share of new vehicle by ethnic group in LA.
From a brand perspective, Toyota and Honda lead the way with one of three new vehicles originating from these brands. Two to watch are Hyundai and Kia with year-over-year volume increases in excess of 100%.
So who rules supreme on the LA streets? The following is a Top 5 model list based on volume purchased by each diverse market listed:
The rulers of the road in LA are the Honda Civic, Honda Accord and the Toyota brand. Why? Because Honda Civic and Accord were rated in the Top 3 for all diverse communities and we have to give Toyota some "props" for placing four models on the Top 5 matrix including a minivan entry. The "Swagger Wagon" campaign appears to be paying off as this is the second major market where the Asian community placed Sienna in the Top 5 model list.
Based on this, I asked Alice Lee, Vice President of Research at LA 18 / KSCI-TV why Asians are so attached to Sienna. She expressed, "Minivans have always been popular among Asian Americans because they tend to be multi-generational families with children, who enjoy doing group activities and weekend road trips." Plus Toyota has been a consistent and extensive marketer to the Asian community, according to Lee. Congrats to Honda and Toyota for dominating the Top 5 list in the backyard of their U.S. headquarters.
This is the third installment of the diverse automotive market summary series, with the Philadelphia DMA on deck. I look forward to hearing your thoughts as I work to increase automotive market knowledge of the auto public at large.
Posted by Marc Bland, Product Strategist & Multicultural Marketing Lead, Polk (08.30.2011)