Silver, white, red and blue were the most popular car colours in India in 2009, says DuPont GACP Report

Buying a car in India? DuPont says you're likely to pick up one that's either silver, white, red or blue, the most popular car colours in the country...

Automotive colour specialist, DuPont has announced that silver, black and white are on top in the first-ever ranking of worldwide vehicle colour popularity. Now in its 57th year, the annual DuPont Global Automotive Colour Popularity (GACP) Report has listed the top 10 most popular car colours in the world as under:

1. Silver – 25% percent
2. Black – 23%
3. White – 16%
4. Gray – 13%
5. Blue – 9%
6. Red – 8%
7. Brown/Beige – 4%
8. Green – 1%
9. Yellow/Gold – 1%
10. Others – Less than 1%

‘By gathering and analyzing colour popularity data around the globe, DuPont is able to better identify trends and help our customers in the automotive industry develop colour palettes for the future,’ says Nancy Lockhart, colour marketing manager for DuPont OEM Performance Coatings.

‘The auto industry is an increasingly global business, so regional and global colour data are vitally important to designers,’ she adds. Interestingly enough, DuPont’s report suggests an ongoing convergence of colour choice globally, with the top three colours – black, white and silver – growing in popularity worldwide.

‘It's important to recognize that most people today, no matter where they live in the world, have access to cutting-edge information about popular colours from many sources like glossy magazines and fashionable websites and often will see the same widely distributed films. The top colours become ‘aspirational,’ with a universal appeal,’ says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director, Pantone Colour Institute.

The market in India shows strong preference for silver (26.4%), white (23.4%), red (16.1%) and blue (10.9%), with the remaining colours each garnering 6% or less of the market.

In North America, white (17.8%) remains the top colour choice, with black (17%) and silver (16.7%) in second and third place. However, while black’s popularity has gone up by six percentage points from 2005, silver and white have dropped in popularity by about two percentage points over the past five years.

In Europe, the top colour black (27%) continues to gain popularity over silver (19.9%), which is continuing to decline. White is growing in popularity but remains a second tier colour with 10.2% of the market.

Japan saw a wide swing of colour popularity for the year, ultimately aligning more with the North American and European markets. White remained the top colour choice at 28%, dropping 4 points from 2008. Silver dropped five points to 23%, tied with black.

In contrast, the Chinese vehicle market experiences fluctuations in colour preference. Silver rose four points to 36% for the year to remain the top colour, with black dropping eight points to 23% as the second most popular colour.