Droom unveils Annual Automobile Trends Report CY2021

Chennai, February 14, 2022: India’s pioneering automobile e-commerce platform droom released its annual automobile trends report for Calendar Year (CY) 2021, where it observed significant growth in online buying and preference for used cars. The company registered its presence in 1151 cities, including tier 1, 2, 3, and 4 cities, versus any typical physical branded dealership available in 50 - 70 cities. 
 
As per the report, the pandemic has pushed the buyer preference to opt for personal mobility over public transportation, ridesharing, and used over new automobiles. For the company that provides the largest selection of more than 275k+ automobiles, Delhi, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Hyderabad emerged as the largest markets for the transaction in CY2021.
 
The report also observed that the SUV segment topped the chart in 4 wheelers, with Hyundai Creta being on the top, followed by Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza and Toyota Fortuner. Bajaj Pulsar emerged as the top preference in 2-wheelers, followed by TVS Apache RTR, Bajaj Pulsar NS, and Bajaj Avenger.
 
Premiumization is a trend on the India level accentuated by droom’s pure-play e-commerce model, which resulted in the average selling price for cars standing out to be at ~10.7lakh and the median price is ~7 lakh versus physical branded dealers at around 4 lakh who tend to focus only on the mass-market whereas droom caters to mass, mid, premium, and luxury segments. 
 
Commenting on the report, Sandeep Aggarwal, Chairman and CEO, droom said,“E-commerce is only 2% of the entire automobile market in India, and we believe in disruption and creating efficiencies through our innovative technology-led, no physical stores and just in time inventory business model which makes us stand out in the automobile industry. The Calendar Year 2021 was more of a recovery year for business from the ongoing impact of COVID, and the same was reflected in our annual automobile trend report 2021. The trends show an overall healthy growth for the automobile market, with more buyers and sellers opting to go online.”
 
He further added, “droom is one of the largest transactional platforms that compiles data and findings and presents insightful and interesting analysis reports.” 
 
In the luxury vehicle segment, Mercedes Benz E-Class became the most preferred luxury car, followed by BMW5 Series and Mercedes Benz C Class, whereas in the 2-wheeler segment Harley Davidson Street scored the best, followed by Kawasaki Ninja and Royal Enfield Interceptor.
 
In terms of ownership age, 4–5-year-old cars were bought extensively, and for a two-wheeler, buyers preferred 6 to 7 years old vehicles. In the calendar year 2021 (CY2021), buyers registered a stronger preference for diesel fuel cars 59% vs 39% for petrol-driven by a higher disparity between the price of petrol and diesel last year.