Agenda news, we call this. Every year a major paint manufacturer comes up with an overview of the most popular car colors. And every year it’s the same song: white, black, gray and silver predominate. In fact, exactly 80 percent of all new cars in Europe are executed in one of those ‘colours’. Because buyers don’t dare to jump out of the box, but also because car brands give them little choice.
According to Axalta’s Global Automotive Color Popularity report, gray is still the most chosen car color in Europe (27 percent), closely followed by white (23 percent) and black (22 percent). Gray and black became more popular (plus 2 percent and plus 1 percent), white slightly less (minus 2 percent). The first real color on the list is – how could it be otherwise – blue, with a percentage of 11 percent. Silver is in fifth place (8 percent). Red (5 percent), brown/beige (2 percent), green and yellow (1 percent) are virtually offside.
White is the most popular everywhere, except in Europe
It’s interesting to see that no matter where you are in the world, gray, white and black are the most popular everywhere. Europe is the only continent where gray wins, in all other markets white is dominant. In China, white even has a market share of 50 percent. Blue is the most popular color almost everywhere after white, gray, black and silver, with the exception of India and Russia, where brown/beige predominates. Yellow is at the bottom everywhere except in China, where the happy hue ranks fifth after blue.
Do not dare to take any risks with the residual value
But why is it that car buyers opt for non-colours such as white, grey, black and silver every year? First, because many new cars are bought by fleet owners and leasing companies. They do not take any risk with residual value and opt for a color that always remains current. Residual value also plays a role for private buyers, but also the question: will I still like that trendy color in a few years’ time? Because what is trendy now – green, for example – will no longer please anyone in 2025, for example.
Manufacturers offer their customers few colors
In addition, the chicken-and-egg problem plays a role in the popularity of car colors. Manufacturers usually offer no more than ten colors, with variants of white, gray, black and silver being by far the majority. Do manufacturers opt for this because the consumer wants it? Or does the consumer want that because the manufacturer chooses to do so? No idea. But it is not surprising that green and yellow do not get further than a market share of 1 percent. The shades are in almost no price list. In addition to white, grey, black and silver, you will only find red and blue.