Buying your first car is a moment when you will never forget your life. You may not care much about the brand, but apparently there was a brand by far the most popular last year: BMW.
We’ll get straight to the point with one big caveat: the research that shows this is based on messages on social media. Comparethemarket.com looked over the whole of 2020 which brands came up most often when a message was about someone’s first car. BMW emerged as the winner. In no less than 28.8 percent of the cases, the first car discussed was a BMW. It is of course possible that people who buy a BMW would like to be the first to advertise it, but the difference with the other brands is still striking.
In second place is Ford, with only 6.6 percent. Another brand that you can imagine that a lot is posted about when it comes to a first car is Audi, but we only find it in fifth place with 5.6 percent. So BMW is really at a lonely height.
The full top 10 can be found below. Comparethemarket.com reports that Honda (2.6 percent), Seat (2.5 percent) and Hyundai (2.4 percent) were narrowly outside the top 10.
| Brand | Percentage of ‘first-car-posts’ on social media in 2020 | |
| 1 | BMW | 28.8% |
| 2 | Ford | 6.6% |
| 3 | Renault | 6.1% |
| 4 | Toyota and Audi (shared fourth place) | 5.6% |
| 5 | Volkswagen | 5.4% |
| 6 | Peugeot | 5.2% |
| 7 | Fiat | 4.5% |
| 8 | Mazda | 3.8% |
| 9 | Mini | 3.5% |
| 10 | Volvo | 3.1% |