Luxury Cars Demand Increases Despite Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 has been an incredibly difficult and challenging year for the whole world and not least the automotive industry. With various, ever-changing lockdown restrictions affecting differing areas of the UK, showrooms and dealerships have had a hard time trying to adhere to the latest guidelines.

With buyer confidence low and consumers less willing to visit physical stores where they may have to come into contact with people, the automotive industry has had to adapt accordingly and change with the times.

It may come as a surprise then, that despite all these problems, our latest research shows that Google searches for luxury & prestige cars increased by 17% over the first 6 months since COVID-19 hit the UK in March 2020.

We analysed 31 different Google searches between March & August 2020 vs the same time period from 2019 and the data makes for some interesting and revealing reading:

• The biggest increase in searches was for the specific keyword ‘luxury cars’ which increased by 2,200 searches a month (50%) as Brits continued to ‘Google’ their favourite motors
• ‘luxury suv’ also saw a huge rise (48%) as we perhaps decided to put our money into a new vehicle to travel around the country rather than holidays abroad
• ‘luxury sports cars’ was also up by almost half as Brits decided to treat themselves on a new toy during the unprecedented times
• There were 3,280 more searches in total in 2020 vs 2019 (a 17% increase)

So regardless of the financial difficulties that the pandemic has thrown up for UK consumers, it seems that they were still firmly in the market for a new luxury car. Perhaps the money saved from being able to travel abroad and spend money on holidays has been reinvested into a prestige motor to tour the UK in?

Either way, as we enter a second wave, it may not be as problematic as once thought for the auto industry and the lessons learnt from the first lockdown have been learnt so showrooms are much more prepared.

The data is from Google’s Keyword Planner Tool for March 2020 – August 2020 vs the same time period in 2019.

See full raw data below:

Header image credit: https://media.landrover.com/en-gb/vehicle/range-rover?page=4