America’s love affair with SUVs and crossovers keeps on growing.
When SUV and crossover owners shopped for a new vehicle in the first four months of 2017, two-thirds of them acquired another new SUV or crossover, according to a new analysis from business information provider IHS Markit.
SUV/CUV loyalty has grown from under 53 percent in 2012 to more than 66 percent through April, and is 13 percentage points higher than the industry average of 52.6 percent, IHS Markit says.
Pickup loyalty rates also are increasing, with nearly 51 percent of pickup owners acquiring another one during the first four months of the year.
Low gas prices have helped fuel the popularity of the two categories, IHS Markit notes.
At the same time, sedan loyalty has softened, with rates declining 7.6 percentage points to 48.6 percent since 2012, when 56.2 percent of sedan owners acquired another sedan, according to the IHS Markit analysis.
If the trend continues through the rest of the year, it will mark the first year in which less than half of sedan households acquired another one when they returned to market.
In the first four months of 2017, two-thirds of sedan owners defected to an SUV or CUV – representing nearly 300,000 transactions, according to IHS Markit.
The top three body styles with the highest loyalty account for more than 85 percent of all new light-vehicle registrations in the United States during the first four months of 2017, according to IHS Markit.
“The exceptionally high loyalty of SUV/CUV households is driven by continued proliferation of crossover models across a wide range of size, price and functionality (i.e., off-road vs. non-off road),” said Tom Libby, manager, automotive loyalty and industry analysis at IHS Markit. “In some cases, this proliferation has resulted in two or even three models in the same segment from the same brand.”