Global: Are consumers expecting costs of new or used cars to increase or decrease in the next 12 months?
Data from a recently conducted YouGov survey, focused on 18 international markets, reveals that most consumers believe that prices for all products and services will either increase a lot or a little in the next 12 months.
But in which categories are consumers expecting to see the biggest price changes? And in which direction do they see the price of new or used cars moving?
The highest share is seen in groceries (80%), health foods or wellness products (79%) and takeout/ restaurant food (77%). Around three-quarters of the global audience think the costs of airline travel (73%) and hotel accommodations (74%) will increase in the next 12 months. While the share of consumers expecting the price of new or used cars to increase is not as high, it is still more than two-thirds of the global audience (68%). The percentage of consumers who believe prices will decrease, either a little or a lot, is generally low across all categories – and cars are no exception.
We look at how consumers expect the price of new or used cars to move in the next 12 months. According to the data, consumers in Singapore are most likely of all markets to expect an increase in the cost of buying a new or used car in the next 12 months, with 56% expecting a significant increase and 28% expecting the prices to increase a little. France and Poland are also countries where the vast majority of consumers expect an increase in car prices – 83% and 82% respectively.
While more than three-quarters of consumers in Great Britain (79%) expect car prices to increase in the next 12 months, the rest of the markets in the European region are less likely to say the same. In contrast, nearly two in ten consumers in Denmark (18%), say they expect prices to decrease in the near future, while only 7% expect a significant increase.
In North America, 70% of consumers in the US say they are expecting car prices to increase in the next 12 months. But consumers in neighboring countries like Mexico (81%) and Canada (79%) are significantly more likely to expect price hikes.
Interestingly the data also shows that some countries, such as Hong Kong, have a significant proportion of consumers expecting prices to remain the same. Here, half the population (50%) expects prices to neither increase nor decrease, the highest of all markets. Consumers in other Asian markets like China (46%) and Indonesia (32%) follow suit. Hong Kong is also the only country where more consumers expect car prices to decrease a lot (24%) than increase overall (18%).
Demographic analysis reveals expectations are consistent across age groups. Over two in ten Britons think prices of cars will increase a little over the next 12 months (42% each of 18-24-year-olds and 25-34-year-olds, 47% of 45-54; 44% of 55+). On the other hand, around 41% of Americans aged between 18 to 24 years are expecting prices to remain unchanged.
Overall, a higher proportion of consumers in the UAE say they expect car prices to go up a little (38%) than a lot (27%). This trend is also seen across all age groups in the country with only those over 55 years being the exception, with nearly identical shares expecting prices to go up by a lot (40%) or by a little (41%).
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 and 2034 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in February 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
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