Analysis of Research in Consumer Behavior of Automobile Passenger Car Customer

The automobile industry today is the most lucrative industry. Due to increase in disposable income in both rural and urban sector and availability of easy finance are the main drivers of high volume car segments. Further competition is heating up with host of new players coming in and global brands like Porsche, Bentley, and Ferrari all set to venture in Indian market. This research will be helpful for the existing and new entrant car manufacturing companies in India to find out the customer expectations and their market offerings. Indian Automobile car business is influenced by the presence of many national and multinational manufacturers. This paper presents analysis of research in the area of Consumer Behavior of Automobile Car Customer. Proper understanding of consumer buying behavior will help the marketer to succeed in the market. All segments in Indian Car industry were studied and found that buyer has different priority of behaviors in each segment, where as main driver for car purchase is disposable income. Value for money, safety and driving comforts top the rank in terms of customer requirement; where as perceived quality by customers mainly depends on brand image. For this research, methodology adopted was to study the research papers in the area of Passenger Car segment, study the purchase decision process and its interaction with behavior parameters across all the segments of car such as small & Hatch Back segment, Sedan class segment, SUV & MUV segment and Luxury Car segment. The objective of this study is the identification of factors influencing customer’s preferences for particular segment of cars. This paper also attempts to consolidate findings & suggestions to overcome present scenario of stagnancy in sales and cultivate future demand for automobile car market.