Toronto, Ontario – BASF has released its 2020 Colour Report where the global paint and coatings giant showed off the most popular paint colours of the past year.
The report covered trends reported from four distinct automotive markets: Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); as well as North America, Asia Pacific and South America.
According to the report, the EMEA market is showing an affinity for blue coatings as it was reported that about “11 percent of new vehicles were coated in blue, making it the most popular chromatic colour.”
As well, a greater variety of shades was seen over the past year in EMEA with more than 160 distinct shades of blue being used in 2020, with grey coming second with 140.
“Colour variety changes with size. For example, where violet has a unique home in mid-size SUVs, it does not appear in great numbers in smaller or larger SUVs,” said head of automotive colour design for the EMEA region, Mark Gutjahr.
“The opposite is true with yellow, which shows up in both the very small and the very large, but not the middle. These are specific and unique colour positions that appear and disappear throughout the segments.”
In North America, blue vehicles have shown to be trending highly, edging out red as the most popular chromatic colour in the market.
According to the report, shades of blue are considered to show elegance, a trait which BASF designers predicted would increase in popularity as early as 2016 when they described blue as “a major colour direction for the automotive industry that will gain market share in upcoming years.”
“There’s a lot to get excited about with the bright colours we’re seeing,” said Paul Czornij, head of design for the Americas.
“Just as we predicted three or four years ago, blue is having a moment in the sun, and we’re using some beautiful effects and pigments that advance the possibilities of hue and texture in this important design space.”
Representing the global centre of automotive production by volume, the Asia Pacific market has seen white maintain as the most popular colour, coating about 48 percent of the new vehicles produced.
There is notable variety in colours in general, however, as brown, green and violet also remain consistently popular in the region.
“People in Asia Pacific really enjoy choosing colours for their vehicles. Colours are very human-oriented, flexible, and free, showing the diversity of the region and its people,” said head of design for Asia Pacific, Chiharu Matsuhara.
In South America, more conservative achromatic colours like white, grey and black occupy positions as the most popular coatings, reporting a share of 39, 18 and 12 percent respectively of new vehicle colours.
However, unlike other regions, red has shown to be the most popular chromatic colour in South America with a share of nine percent.
“Trends that are popular in other parts of the world are slower to catch on in South America. While this is a continent with many colourful aspects of its culture, people tend to be more conservative with their cars,” said Marcos Fernandes, director regional business management for South America.
The BASF Color Report for Automotive OEM Coatings is a data analysis from BASF’s Coatings division based on global automotive production and paint application to light vehicles in 2020.
