iPhone and Android smartphone users are serious car shoppers

Smartphone shoppers using Android or iPhones are serious car shoppers on Edmunds.com and can be more serious than computer or tablet shoppers, they look to see what is in stock a dealerships.

Although smartphone users spend less time on Edmunds.com than wired users, they view as many or more pages during that time, and they’re more likely to focus their research on specific vehicles.

79% of smartphone users on Edmunds.com research at least one specific vehicle model during their time on the site, surpassing even the impressive rate of about 65 percent of wired users.

Smartphone users view local inventory listings at rates more than 30% than their wired counterparts, suggesting that they are generally lower in the funnel of the car buying process.

Smartphone users are especially inclined to view inventory says Edmunds.com Chief Economist Dr. Lacey Plache.

The most popular automotive brand for iOS and Android is Toyota. But a deeper look shows stark differences between iOS and Android loyalists: Three luxury brands (BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Lexus), for example, appear on the list of the ten most researched brands for iOS users, compared to just one luxury brand (BMW) for Android users. iOS users also skew more toward Honda (#2 on the brand list) than do Android users (#4 on the brand list).

Source: Edmunds.com

Edmunds.com’s mobile shopper analysis also reported:

• Smartphone site visitors show a stronger preference for used vehicles than wired site visitors (with 53 percent of smartphone visitors looking up used cars vs. 38 percent of wired visitors). The share of smartphone shoppers browsing used car inventory on Edmunds is 40 percent higher than the share of wired shoppers.
• 55 percent of smartphone visitors are Millennials (age 18 to 34), compared to 26 percent of wired site users.
• Smartphone users are at least 2.5 times more likely to click on ads than wired site visitors, and mobile engagement has tripled compared to last year. An analysis of post-Edmunds activity found that these mobile clickers continue to perform serious shopping activities on the OEM or dealer sites where their ad clicks redirect them, suggesting that these engagements are not due to accidental clicks or by mistaking ads for Edmunds content.
•  Edmunds’ mobile site users and traffic have more than doubled since 2012.

Edmunds.com is hoping its new app will keep drivers from texting while driving through promise reminders on Apple Watches. In May, Edmunds.com updated its mobile app with direct text messaging to car dealers.

In March, Edmunds.com announced the winners of its Hackomotive ’15 for car shopping apps.