Search trends tend to indicate what people are interested in; we all know about the swine flu spikes from a few weeks ago, for example. Unfortunately for General Motors, search trends now show that consumers may be even more averse to buying its vehicles than to catching the bug.
Yesterday, Hitwise General Manager Bill Tancer put out a list of May’s top ten automotive brands. From first to last, they were Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan, Hyundai, Dodge, Kia, Suzuki, Volkswagen, and Jeep. Chevrolet, the top GM brand, only made an appearance in twelfth place.
(Credit: Hitwise)
This situation appears to be about normal, too. As the above graph illustrates, searches for GM’s different brands have been decreasing in number for quite some time. And heck, Saturn and Pontiac are two of the branches due to be sold or killed off.
Here’s a little more info that lovers of American cars won’t like: out of the top 100 GM-related search terms, Tancer found that 65 percent focused on financial news and a full 25 percent tied to dealership closings. Not a lot of folks were researching new car purchases, in other words.
So there’s a snapshot of the corporation in which the U.S. government now has a 60 percent stake. Maybe all of this will result in some Chevy Camaros and Cadillac CTS-Vs selling at bargain prices, anyway.
