Men Go For Looks; Women Opt For Practicality According to TrueCar.com Study

Study Examines Gender Differences in Vehicle Purchases; Provides Current Discounts on Popular Models

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Apr 07, 2011, 09:00 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar.com, the authoritative voice in new car pricing and industry trend information, has released a refreshed demographic study based on car-buying behavior in 2010, examining gender differences in auto buying. TrueCar.com's study was based on over eight million retail purchases in 2010.

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"The study shows that women car buyers are more cost-conscious and purchased fuel-efficient vehicles while male buyers were completely the opposite, purchasing vehicles that were either big and brawny, like a large truck, or chose a high-priced, high-performance vehicle," said Jesse Toprak, Vice President of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com.

Some of the key findings of the TrueCar.com study include:

The brand with the highest percentage of retail sales to females in 2010 was MINI (47.9 percent), followed by Kia (46.8 percent), and Honda (46.0 percent) compared to 2009 when Saturn and Kia tied at 45.2 percent and MINI came in third at 45.0percent. There were fifteen brands with a female ratio over 40 percent in both 2009 and 2010.
The highest percentage of male buyers primarily purchased exotic brands. There were five brands in 2010 at 10 percent or less for retail sales to women, including Ferrari (6.4 percent), Lotus (7.2 percent), Lamborghini (7.4 percent), Maybach (8.0 percent), and Rolls Royce (9.3 percent) compared to 2009 when there were six brands; including Bugatti (0 percent), Maybach (3.7 percent), Ferrari (5.1 percent), Lamborghini (5.5 percent), Rolls Royce (8.0 percent), and Aston Martin (9.0 percent).
The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to females and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Volkswagen New Beetle, Kia Spectra, Nissan Rogue, Volkswagen Eos, Hyundai Entourage, Volvo S40, Jeep Compass, Honda CR-V, Nissan Sentra, and Hyundai Tucson.
The top ten models that had greater than 50 percent retail sales to males and at least 1,000 annual retail sales in 2010 were: Porsche 911, GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-Series, BMW M3, Ford Ranger, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram and Audi S5.

TrueCar.com also examined the most current market prices and listed discounts for all of the brands and specific models that were tracked with over 1,000 vehicle sales annually. Below are the top ten brands with the highest male and female purchase ratios and their current discount percentages:


Female Purchases in 2010			Male Purchases in 2010
Brand	% Female	Current Discount % from MSRP	Brand	% Male	Current Discount % from MSRP
MINI	47.9%	3.0%	Ferrari	93.6%	N/A
Kia	46.8%	6.0%	Maserati	84.4%	N/A
Honda	46.0%	5.0%	Porsche	80.3%	6%
Nissan	45.5%	10.0%	GMC	74.3%	8%
Subaru	45.0%	5.0%	Jaguar	73.0%	5%
Suzuki	44.6%	11.0%	Dodge	72.8%	8%
Hyundai	44.5%	6.0%	Land Rover	72.0%	4%
Mercury	44.4%	N/A	Ford	68.9%	8%
Mazda	44.2%	6.0%	Chevrolet	68.8%	8%
Mitsubishi	43.8%	10.0%	HUMMER	67.9%	N/A

Below are the top ten models that had the highest percentage of male and female buyers (minimum 1,000 retail sales) and their current market discounts from MSRP:


Female Purchases in 2010 - Makes/Models			Male Purchases in 2010 - Brands/Models
Makes/Models	% Female	Current Discount % from MSRP	Makes/Models	% Male	Current Discount % from MSRP
Volkswagen New Beetle	60.6%	2%	Porsche 911	87.9%	7%
Nissan Rogue	56.3%	8%	GMC Sierra	87.4%	8%
Volkswagen Eos	55.3%	5%	Chevrolet Corvette	86.7%	9%
Volvo S40	54.5%	6%	Chevrolet Silverado	86.3%	10%
Jeep Compass	54.3%	8%	Ford F-Series	86.3%	7%
Honda CR-V	53.8%	6%	BMW M3	85.6%	6%
Nissan Sentra	53.5%	15%	Ford Ranger	84.4%	19%
Hyundai Tucson	53.2%	5%	Toyota Tundra	84.3%	11%
Toyota RAV4	52.7%	6%	Dodge Ram	84.2%	6%
Toyota Yaris	52.7%	7%	Audi S5	83.0%	3%

For more information, visit the TrueCar Truth Blog where the full tables are available.

About TrueCar, Inc.

TrueCar, Inc. is an automotive solutions provider focused on changing how cars are sold by providing a significantly better customer experience while helping qualified dealer partners to gain incremental market share and reduce costs. TrueCar.com is a transparent, visual publisher of new car transaction data. TrueCar.com price reports help both dealers and consumers to agree on the parameters of a fair deal by providing an accurate, comprehensive and simple understanding of what others actually paid for the identically equipped new car over the last 30 days both locally and nationally. TrueCar, Inc. works with a national network of nearly 5,000 Certified Dealers that provide up-front, no-haggle, competitive pricing to assist some of the nation's largest and most well respected membership and service organizations. These partnerships include American Express, AAA, USAA and more than 60 others. Collectively these audiences represent over 1M in-market customers each month. TrueCar, Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA and has offices in San Francisco. The company was founded in 2005 and has been profitable since 2009. With nearly 200 percent year-over-year growth TrueCar has driven over 250,000 sales and is developing a suite of transaction oriented products and services centered on transparency and radical clarity as a result of comprehensively analyzing market data and information. You can follow TrueCar on Twitter and become a fan of TrueCar on Facebook.

About TrueCar Data

TrueCar obtains data directly from car dealers, respected dealer management system (DMS) providers, and well-known data aggregators within the automotive space. We also acquire vehicle configuration data, customer and dealer incentives data, financing and loan data, vehicle purchases and insurance data, and much, much more. TrueCar is insatiable about data with our goal to find 100% of all purchase transactions, even if that means finding the same transaction multiple times from multiple sources within the car-buying ecosystem. Our data is among the most timely and comprehensive in the industry, as we are able to process most car sales within a week of the actual sales date, and have a substantial fraction on the site within 48 hours of the actual sale. TrueCar believes the greater our informational accuracy, the greater benefit we provide to both dealers and consumers.

Disclaimer

This press release and the information contained herein is for noncommercial use on "as-is, as available" basis and may be used for informational purposes only. TrueCar makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information contained in this press release and the results of the use of such information, including but not limited to implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. The information contained in this press release may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Neither TrueCar nor any of its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates or respective partners, officers, or directors, employees or agents shall be held liable for any damages, whether direct, incidental, indirect, special or consequential, including without limitation lost revenues or lost profits, arising from or in connection with your use or reliance on the information presented in this press release.

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Jesse Toprak

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=94534

SOURCE TrueCar.com