BASF breaks down the 2017 automotive colours market

With the “BASF Color Report For Automotive OEM Coatings”, BASF’s Coatings division provides a global analysis of the colour distribution in the 2017 automotive market.
Globally, white maintains its strong position in all segments and still is the number one colour with a market share of almost 40 per cent. Together with black, grey, and silver, the achromatic colours continue to be the most prominent. When it comes to chromatic colours, the share of blue and red is almost equal, followed by brown. The global overview of the car segments shows: the smaller the car the more vivid the colour.

With increasing sales and number of models, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) significantly influence the popularity data. While white and black are still strong colours within this segment, red, blue, and especially brown are showing up more and more. This mirrors the expected growth and diversification of the model range of these robust vehicles.

The figures of the European Colour Report 2017 reveal that achromatic colours ares till the most popular. About 78 per cent of all cars were painted white, black, grey or silver last year, marking a continuing trend.
Among the achromatic colours, the proportion of grey increased to 19 per cent. Grey has now attained the same popularity as black. The growing share of gray is underlined by the increasing diversity of gray shades. With more than 100 variations, gray has the second highest number of shades after blue. “Gray – with its associations with concrete and glass – represents the most urban color and has increased strongly over the past years. With shades from light and mid-grays to dark anthracite, it represents a huge variety and in so doing has gained its strong market position,” said Mark Gutjahr, head of Automotive Color Design EMEA at BASF’s Coatings division.

Of the chromatic colors, blue continues to trend strongly. While the overall share of 10 percent remained stable, the proportion of blue increased considerably in terms of its share in the chromatic palette: nearly every second chromatic car produced in Europe 2017 was blue – a trend predicted by BASF’s Coatings color designers and reflected in the numerous blue shades in the last color trend collections. With nearly 130 different variations, blue also remained number one in terms of color diversity.