Achromatic colors such as white, black, silver, and gray are still enjoying popularity in automotive exterior colors, but blue, red, yellow, and violet colors are steadily increasing. According to the “2020 BASF Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings” released by BASF Coatings Business Department, in 2020, more diverse colored vehicles appeared globally than in 2019, showing a different color change with an expanded color spectrum.
In some regions, blue and yellow colors are gaining popularity, while in other regions where achromatic color is dominant, red and violet colors gradually emerged. Nevertheless, achromatic colors such as white, black, silver, and gray still showed a high market share. As it has been for many years, white is the most popular color in the world, symbolizing the link between the environment and advanced technology, combining classicity with timeless beauty.
The Asia-Pacific region, where global color popularity by region can be viewed as a thumbnail, is similar to global data, but with the appearance of bright colors, chromatic colors can be seen everywhere. White was still the most popular color with a 48% share, followed by black and gray, and has continued to increase for three years.
Brown, green, and violet colors do not have a high market share yet, but are still enjoying popularity. It will take a long time to catch up with the popularity of white, but for now, it is contributing significantly to the color diversity of the Asia Pacific region. “Asia-Pacific consumers are very interested in choosing a car color,” said Chiharu Matsuhara, head of the Asia-Pacific automotive color design team. “Human-oriented, flexible, and free colors represent the diversity of regions and people. “He added.
Europe, Middle East, and Africa were not very different from the global chromatic color trend. In 2020, blue color was selected as the most popular chromatic color with 11% share. Violet appeared in the market newly and added diversity, and the demand for other chromatic colors was also increasing due to the growth of the small SUV market. Color diversity stems in part from hue diversity. Blue colors used by OEMs consist of more than 160 shades, and gray colors ranked second with 140. Both colors have a wider range of shades than white, with more than 70 shades used. In the achromatic area, white still occupies the top spot with a 28% share, followed by gray and black.
“The color changes with the size of the vehicle,” said Mark Gutjahr, head of the EMEA automotive color design team at BASF’s coating division. On the contrary, yellow appears in small and large SUVs, and it is rarely found in medium-sized SUVs. As such, each color plays a clear and unique role depending on the size of the vehicle.”
Consumers in North America have fewer choices of colored types, but that doesn’t mean they’re less likely to prefer colored cars, trucks and SUVs. The blue color gained great popularity, overtaking the red color, and the beige and brown colors almost disappeared, and the only green color remained. Blue is an elegant hue, and consumers who preferred beige and brown colors in the past were increasingly choosing blue and gray colors.
BASF designers predicted this in advance, and already in 2016 introduced blue as the main color expected to increase their share in the automotive industry in the future. Automotive designers usually look three to four years ahead when developing colors, and the market has gone as they expected. “The appearance of bright colors is very interesting,” said Paul Czornij, head of BASF’s North American color design team. “As predicted three to four years ago, the blue color is attracting attention. It is using pigments and beautiful effects that enhance.”
Red and blue colors, which are popular in other regions, are also selected in South America, and are particularly preferred by consumers who want to show their personality with sports cars. But more notable is the preference for achromatic color. Historically, South American consumers have opted for traditional and acceptable colors. Like other regions, white takes up 39% of the market share and is by far the most popular color. Gray and silver each occupied 18% of the market share compared to other regions, and black was the least preferred in the achromatic series at 12%. Together, the market share of achromatic color accounts for a whopping 87%.
Unlike other regions, red was the highest share among chromatic colors with 9% of the market share, and blue color, which is popular around the world with various shades, accounted for only 2% of the share in South America. In addition, the orange color first appeared, the brown color was similar to the previous one, and the beige color is almost disappearing. Marcos Fernandes, president of the Automotive Coatings Division in South America, said, “Trends prevalent elsewhere in the world are slowly fading in South America.” “While it has a colorful culture, consumers tend to be more conservative in cars. There is” he said.
Copyright © Auto Herald Unauthorized reproduction and redistribution prohibited