Consumer Preference Estimation In Chinese Automobile Market

Since becoming the world's largest auto market in 2009,China's auto market has undergone structural changes.With the loosening of restriction on the joint-stock ratio,decline of the automobile tariffs and the enhancement of the strength of Chinese brands,the major auto companies in the Chinese auto market will face more intense competition in the future.Under this circumstances,the ability to grasp the consumer's demand preferences and launch products that meet their preferences will be the key to winning the future for the major car companies.However,from the literature reviewed by the author,the relevant research or data on the consumption preferences of the automobile market is outdated,or the period of research is short,which cannot fully reflect the demand preference of Chinese auto consumers in the new era.This paper collects product feature data and sales data of most automobile models in the market since China's automobile market has become the world's largest automobile market.It has estimated the demand characteristics of China's automobile market with multiple logit model and random coefficient discrete choice model..In particular,according to the daily car buying habits of Chinese consumers,this article classifies automobile brands by different classification criteria in order to alleviate the endogenous problems in the estimation process,and at the same time explore the role of the brand factors in the process of consumers choice.This paper also compares the demand characteristics of consumers in the Chinese auto market on a time-stratified basis to reflect the changes in consumer demand preferences over time.The results show that the endogenous problem of price can be significantly improved after adding brand variables to the model.The BLP model is more realistic than the logit model.Chinese consumers prefer joint venture brands when buying cars,and the order of the preference for the nation-brand is German,American,Korean,Japanese,French,and other European brands.The average brand price does have a positive impact on consumer choice.Consumers after 2013 are less sensitive to the short-term costs of car purchases,more sensitive to long-term costs,and the preference for SUV models has reversed.The gap of brand effect between self-owned brands and joint-venture brands is narrowing.Among the joint venture brands,the gap of brand effect between American brands and German brands is decreasing,the gap between Korean and American is increasing,and the gap between Korean and Japanese is increasing.The gap between Franch brands.other European brands and mainstream joint venture brands is being expanded.In general.consumers' preference for luxury brands is waning.However,the brand effect gap between high-end brands and mid-to-high-end brands is widening,and the brand effect gap between the mid-to-high-end brands is shrinking.