Market segmentation for automobiles

In today’s times, the automobile sector is robust with growth and more and more players are entering the automobile industry. The meaning of market segmentation was discussed in the last post and here an attempt has been made to get an overview of the market segmentation of automobiles.

·        Geographic segmentation

Geographical segmentation is one of the most important basis of segmentation of the automobile sector, especially in large sized countries like India, where the conditions in different regions.

Taking the segmentation in India itself, we find that manufactures of tractors would focus only on those areas where agriculture is of prime importance and would target those agriculturists who have sizeable land holdings and have the resources to buy a tractor.

On the other hand, commercial vehicle companies would segment the market on the basis of concentration of industries in different regions.

Luxury car makers would definitely target the metropolitan regions for the sale of their cars, whereas small car makers would also take into account developing cities and townships into account during the process of segmentation of their products. 

·        Demographic segmentation

Another important basis for segmentation of the automobile sector is demographic segmentation. Demographic segmentation provides a base marketing of products according to the income, status, age, etc.

Manufactures of small cars like Nano would primarily focus on the segment of the people belonging to the middle class and here comes lies the demographic segmentation. On the other hand, luxury car manufacturers would focus more on the high income segment.

Similarly, demographic segmentation plays an important role in the two wheeler market. Bike manufacturers generally target young to middle aged people. More and more manufactures are coming with automobiles for women, which have special features and are easy to use.

According to the age of the target market group, automobile manufacturers would come up with different colour variants, for instance bright and flashy colours for the young and vice versa.

·        Psychological segmentation

Based on psychological segmentation, automobile manufacturers come up with different variant of the models of their products. This has been largely seen in the case of cars, where companies generally come up with two or three variants of the same model, and it has been observed by industry analysts that the variant of the medium variant of the model sells the most.

Tag-lines such as “Men are Back” (used by Maruti Suzuki for the launch of a new car) and “Definitely Male” (used by Bajaj for a popular bike) target a particular category of individuals and help to increase sales and popularity in that segment.

Manufacturers of luxury cars like Ferrari, Porsche, etc target the section of the society with a large disposable income and high status, and this can be achieved by psychological segmentation.

·        Behavioural  segmentation

As mentioned earlier, behavioural segmentation is done on the basis of the benefits sought, loyalty status, etc.

This is another important means for segmentation in the automobile sector, and taking yet again the example of a car, Daimler, the manufacturer of luxury car Maybach, customises the cars according to the needs and requirements of the products.

Thus, through some examples, we have seen how the market for automobiles is segmented.

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