世論 What Japan Thinks

INFOPlant performed a survey at the end of last November to find out people’s views on buying domestic cars. 8,559 people, 38.8% male, filled in a questionnaire available through an iMode menu.

I don’t see myself buying a car of any origin in the forseeable future. Living right in front of the railway station and with all stores offering cheap home delivery for big stuff, it’s so much cheaper to just rent whenever I have a need for my own transport. Also, running costs, or more accurately, sitting in the parking area not running anywhere costs, are pretty steep in Japan, even if the vehicle itself is relatively cheap.

Q1: In the future, which domestic car maker’s vehicles would you want to buy? (Sample size=8,559, up to three answers)

	All	Male N=3,321	Female N=5,238
Toyota (including Lexus)	74.2%	74.1%	74.2%
Nissan	45.8%	45.6%	45.9%
Honda	40.1%	44.4%	37.3%
Daihatsu	16.0%	10.1%	19.8%
Suzuki	14.5%	11.2%	16.6%
Mazda	14.4%	16.8%	12.9%
Subaru	8.8%	15.4%	4.7%
Mitsubishi	6.6%	8.5%	5.4%
Other	3.8%	3.4%	4.0%
Don’t think I want to buy domestic	2.0%	2.3%	1.8%

Daihatsu and Suzuki’s mainly female image can be seen here, and Subaru’s rally heritage attracts the men. Looking at a detailed breakdown by age, Suzuki is most popular with teenage girls, whereas Daihatsu is strongest amongst the twenty- and thirty-something women.

Q2: When purchasing a domestic vehicle, what are the important issues to you? (Sample size=8,389, up to three answers)

	All	Male N=3,244	Female N=5,145
Styling or design	75.1%	71.4%	77.4%
Price	64.8%	61.8%	66.7%
Driveability or ride feel	52.1%	54.3%	50.7%
Running costs	35.2%	33.7%	36.2%
Maker or brand	31.7%	34.9%	29.7%
Size or weight	16.3%	15.2%	16.9%
Environmental features	9.6%	9.1%	10.0%
Associated opinions	3.2%	2.4%	3.7%
Other	2.6%	4.2%	1.5%

Although there is not much difference between the sexes when it comes to selecting a car, by age, those under forty find the style and design issues most important, but over forty price becomes more important. With regards to environmental issues, it is least important to those in their twenties, with it getting more important for each subsequent age band. In addition, well over 50% more teenagers than the 20 to 29 age group rate environmental issues as important.

Q3: When purchasing a domestic vehicle, what do you refer to or where do you obtain information? (Sample size=8,389, up to three answers)

	All	Male N=3,244	Female N=5,145
Car showroom	65.8	59.7	69.7
Books or magazines	61.3	77.8	50.8
TV commercial	42.3%	30.3%	49.9%
Associated reputation	34.2	25.6	39.7
PC use maker’s internet site	22.5	27.0	19.6
Event, etc programs	12.6	13.5	12.1
PC use blog, bulletin board, etc	6.3	7.9	5.3
Mobile phone use internet site	3.8	4.8	3.2
Other	8.8	9.1	8.7

There’s a very clear split between the sexes here; men have their car mags, women get sweet-talked by the car salesman! One could characterise the differences by highlighting the male’s preferences for actively-researched information – books and internet sites, whereas women choose passive sources – television advertising, sales talk, and gossip (associated reputation).

Looking at the age breakdown, commercials influence the younger people more (or young people watch more television with car advertisements, of course) and event programs are more important the older one gets; only 9.9% of teenage boys cite this as an important source, versus 21.8% over fifty, and for females, a mere 4.8% of teenagers consult them versus 27.1% of over-fifty women. Note I believe “event programmes” means the glossy brouchures sold at concerts and the like; like with the influence of television advertising, this stronger influence may just be due to higher exposure to these magazines rather than a higher level of trust in their contents.