• by Karl Greenberg , October 14, 2009

 

Six Ford vehicles are leading the industry in the number of owners who repurchase a Ford when they return to showrooms, per Experian Automotive data from the second quarter this year.

The firm said Ford Fusion, Ford Edge and Ford Five Hundred owners showed the industry's highest brand loyalty -- returning to buy a Ford Motor Co. vehicle 62.4%, 57.9% and 56% of the time, respectively. The Ford Freestyle was fifth, the Ford Escape was seventh, and the Ford Focus came in ninth.

Toyota Prius was in fourth place with 52% brand loyalty, while the Chevrolet Impala was sixth place, Toyota Camry came in at number eight and the Toyota Corolla finished in 10th place.

Jeffrey Anderson, director of consulting and analytics, said in a Webinar on the study that Experian's loyalty data, based on new-vehicle registrations in the second quarter, reflect "garage loyalty" or the other vehicles a household owns at time of repurchase. Anderson said Experian also differentiates brand and corporate loyalty scores -- the former indicating when a Honda owner buys another Honda, and the latter if a Honda owner buys an Acura.

GM's corporate loyalty dipped in the second quarter, but it still leads the industry in terms of corporate loyalty. Ford, Toyota, and Honda are mid-range, with Ford neck-and-neck with Toyota. "Hyundai has surpassed Chrysler in loyalty and is closing the gap with Honda," he said. "But the majority of manufacturers are retaining less than four of ten customers, and that really reflects the market and the choices consumers have."

In terms of brand loyalty, Volvo, Audi and Acura showed the biggest increases -- with Volvo seeing a 40% increase in the second quarter, per Experian. "Interestingly enough, with all the GM turmoil, and news of GM canceling brands, loyalty to Pontiac actually increased," he said.

The firm's data, which culls new-vehicle registrations nationwide, found that among 13 vehicles that have higher registrations now than a year ago, Ford Fusion was among the highest, and that about 10% of those were Hybrid Fusions. Chevrolet Traverse and Camaro are two new entries that have helped GM maintain market share, per Anderson, who said GM saw a slight market share gain in part because of Traverse and Camaro.

In terms of market share, GM still is at the top in terms of share. Ford's success has led to Ford having higher market share than Toyota, while Honda has higher share than Chrysler and is neck-and-neck between Hyundai and Nissan, Anderson said. Subaru and Hyundai had the highest proportional market share gain among all marketers, with about a 40% bump.

"The three big manufacturers losing share allowed the smaller ones to pick up steam in the market," he said. Subaru Legacy almost doubled sales. Ford Escape and Honda Pilot have had much success, and Ford F-150 had 30% gain in market share, as did Honda Odyssey, he said.