With the "BASF Color Report For Automotive OEM Coatings", BASF's Coatings division provides a global analysis of the color distribution in the 2017 automotive market. Globally, white maintains its strong position in all segments and still is the number one color with a market share of almost 40 percent.
Together with black, gray, and silver, the achromatic colors continue to be the most prominent. When it comes to chromatic colors, the share of blue and red is almost equal, followed by brown. The global overview of the car segments shows: the smaller the car the more vivid the color.
With increasing sales and number of models, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) significantly influence the popularity data. While white and black are still strong colors within this segment, red, blue, and especially brown are showing up more and more. This mirrors the expected growth and diversification of the model range of these robust vehicles.
The figures of the European Color Report 2017 reveal that achromatic colors are still the most popular. About 78 percent of all cars were painted white, black, gray or silver last year, marking a continuing trend. Among the achromatic colors, the proportion of gray increased to 19 percent. Gray has now attained the same popularity as black. The growing share of gray is underlined by the increasing diversity of gray shades. With more than 100 variations, gray has the second highest number of shades after blue.-PR