Toyota Motor Sales, USA, ranked highest in corporate loyalty in Q2 2012, according to the Experian Automotive Loyalty and Market Trend analysis. Toyota saw its corporate loyalty increase from 41.6 percent in Q2 2011 to 47.3 percent, enabling it to pass both General Motors and Ford Motor Co. This increase marks the first time Toyota has achieved the top spot in corporate loyalty since Q3 2009.
High-level findings from the analysis showcase the top trends in vehicle loyalty, manufacturer market share, vehicle age and new vehicle registrations.
"Toyota has done an outstanding job of regaining customer trust and getting repeat customers into showrooms," said Jeffrey Anderson, director of consulting and analytics for Experian Automotive. "To restore normal operations and regain customer trust in such a short time following the earthquake and tsunami is a truly remarkable comeback."
Experian Automotive defines corporate loyalty as measuring whether a new vehicle purchase matches a prior vehicle owned at the corporate level. This includes all brands under the corporate umbrella. Rounding out the top five in corporate loyalty are General Motors (46.2 percent), Ford Motor Co. (46.0 percent), Hyundai Motor Group (45.3 percent) and Honda Motor Company (43.1 percent).
In regards to Brand Loyalty, the Chevrolet Sonic was the top model, which means that 60.1 percent of Sonic owners who returned to the market bought another Chevrolet vehicle. Ford rounded out the top five in Brand Loyalty by model, with the Ford Fusion (59.9 percent), Ford Flex (55.0 percent), Ford Edge (54.0 percent) and Ford Five Hundred (52.0 percent) owners being the most loyal to the brand.
In other highlights:
• Total vehicle purchases were up by more than 370,000 units, going from 3.2 million registrations in Q2 2011 to 3.6 million in Q2 2012. This metric has been steadily increasing since the economic downturn, when vehicle purchases dropped to 2.5 million in Q2 2009.
• Toyota posted the largest unit sales gain with 145,000 additional registrations, followed by Chrysler with more than 83,000 new registrations.
• Toyota had the biggest market share gain in Q2 with 2.8 percent.
• GM had the steepest Q2 decline in market share at -1.5 percent.
• The average age of vehicle has increased from 10.6 years in Q2 2011 to 10.8 years in Q2 2012.