This study intended to apprehend preference factors in the automobile purchase decision of Korean consumers. This study in particular apprehended an optimal combination of automobile selection attributes through preference attribute analysis, such as brand type, fuel type, brand personality, engine displacement, and other characteristics among automobile selection attributes. This study also intended to suggest a combination of automobile selection attributes that Korean prefer by presenting a preference analysis of demographic characteristics attributes of the respondents using a conjoint analysis method.
The results of conjoint analysis also indicated that Korean consumers preferred gasoline automobiles with excellent distribution network accessibility. Regarding customer preference in other areas, the conjoint analysis indicated that when choosing Diesel among other forms of fuel, customers regarded car choice as important.
That is, they preferred global brand automobiles with excellent performance. The reasons why they preferred imported automobiles to domestic automobiles might be their dissatisfaction with quality, mileage exaggeration and the pricing policy of domestic automobiles. As a result, sales of imported automobiles in Korea have been growing, whereas sales of domestic automobiles have remained flat in Korea. The automobiles that Chinese consumers preferred were generally similar to those that the Korean consumers did. However, since the two showed minor differences in preference by attribute, this study will be useful data to develop new automobile preference attribute products.
Thus, it is required for studies hence forth to secure uniform samples from more areas through systematic survey methods. Secondly, this study could not consider more attributes only by orthogonal design and BIB Test of factor design methods due to methodological limits in the conjoint method, that is, exponential growth of profiles by addition of attributes. Thirdly, since some of the samples were collected from consumers who already owned semi medium sized automobiles, the results of this study may be considered a survey of preference attributes for second automobiles.
Thus, studies henceforth must propose strategic alternatives for the second automobile purchases of existing Chinese consumers in order to address this problem.