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Customer LoginsWhat is going on with ethnic groups in the U.S. automotive market?
Before the collapse of the automotive market in 2009, many automotive companies and marketers were courting the ethnic markets, trying to get a share of this growing segment of the U.S. population and working to establish a relationship with them. Then the bottom fell out of the market in 2009 and it became a brass knuckles game of survival. As the automotive market is beginning to be resuscitated and coming out of crisis mode, it is worth taking a look at the ethnic markets again to see what happened and where they are going.
The Hispanic, Asian and African-American markets had been growing more quickly than the general market before 2009. Then as the whole U.S. automotive market fell into a ditch in 2009, the Hispanic and African-American automotive markets fell into a chasm. The Hispanic automotive market for new vehicle sales fell by 47.2% in 2009 CY compared with 2007 CY volumes. African-American automotive volumes were down 44.3%. The one ethnic group that actually outperformed the general market during the downturn was the Asian market. Their overall volume fell 27.4%, but that was less than the total market drop off of 33.4%, so the Asian market actually increased its share of the market by nearly 9%.
Taking a look at current sales trends, we see the Hispanic market and the Asian market recovering faster than the general market; in fact almost twice as much growth as the general market, while the African-American market is keeping pace with the general market. Because of demographic industry trends, we know there will be more growth within ethnic markets than the general market in the years to come. The question now becomes which OEMs will best capture this growth and develop customer loyalty within the ethnic markets. Stay tuned for more to come on this topic!