Industry expertise

Automotive market research in India

Research for car, two-wheeler and component makers, from concept clinics to dealer studies.

Quick answer

Market Research India is a specialist automotive research consultancy in India. We interview car buyers, dealers, fleet owners in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and English, with field teams in 50 cities and 4 methods matched to how this sector actually buys.

Proposal in 24 hours
Scoped, itemised and fixed-fee.
50 cities, 14 languages
Our own supervised field teams.
Senior-led, NDA-first
A research director on every project.

2,400+

Projects delivered

Cities with field teams

Industries covered

Indian languages

The decisions we help you make

The Indian vehicle purchase is a long, family-mediated decision with a short, dealer-mediated close. Most lost sales are lost in the showroom, after the brand has already done its job — which is why dealer measurement belongs in the same study as buyer research.

What features matter to first-time buyers?
How are dealers performing?
Which segments are growing?
Which variant and feature mix should carry the volume, and which exists only to anchor the price?
Which dealerships are losing qualified walk-ins, and what exactly happens on those visits?

We scope a study against one or two of these at a time. A brief that tries to answer all of them at once usually answers none of them well.

Who we talk to, and how we reach them

A sample is only as good as the definition behind it. Here is how each of these groups is found, screened and verified before anyone asks them a question.

Car buyers
Recruited from registration-matched panels and showroom exit intercepts, screened on purchase or intent window, segment considered, and whether the respondent is the decision maker or the influencer at home.
Dealers
Sampled across principals, sales heads and showroom managers in both your network and competitors', screened on monthly volumes and years with the brand.
Fleet owners
Identified from commercial-registration and aggregator-operator frames, screened on fleet size, utilisation and replacement cycle, and interviewed on total cost of ownership rather than brand preference.

Interviews run in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and English, with every questionnaire translated and back-translated before fieldwork. Moderators and interviewers are briefed on the automotive category itself, not handed a script — which is the difference between a respondent answering politely and a respondent explaining themselves.

Methods that fit this sector

These four come up repeatedly in briefs from this sector. Each page explains the method in full and what it delivers.

What a typical study looks like

This is what a mid-sized study in this sector usually looks like. Smaller qualitative reads and larger tracking programmes scale from here.

Indicative scope — automotive study

Typical sample: n=800 intenders and recent buyers across 8 cities, 150 showroom mystery shops and 30 dealer and fleet-owner depths
Who we interview: Car buyers, Dealers, Fleet owners — each recruited against a separate screener rather than drawn from one general sample.
Core methods: Product & Concept Testing, Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction & NPS, Pricing Research
Fieldwork window: 5–6 weeks, with clinics run over consecutive weekends
Standard deliverables: Go/no-go scores, Optimisation guidance, Volume forecasts, Scorecards
Signature output: A variant and feature-pack recommendation with the price ladder attached
Lead time: 8–10 weeks from sign-off to debrief

Compliance, ethics and data quality

Research in this sector carries obligations that a generic fieldwork house will not have thought about. These are the ones we build into the protocol before the first interview is scheduled.

Test drives covered and consented
Any clinic involving a drive runs with insured vehicles, licence verification and a signed participation waiver, on closed ground wherever possible.
Dealer feedback stays unattributed
Network feedback is reported by cluster rather than by named dealer principal unless they agree otherwise, which is the only way to hear what the network really thinks.
Pre-launch confidentiality
Clinic participants sign NDAs, devices are secured for the session, and camouflaged stimulus is used for unreleased product.
Verification you can audit
Every car buyer and fleet owner we count is screened against a written definition, de-duplicated, GPS- and timestamp-logged in the field, and re-contacted on a 10% back-check with 10% of audio audited by a supervisor who did not run the interview.

What we will not do on a automotive study

We will not substitute an audience without telling you, quietly loosen a screener to hit a quota, interview anyone who has not understood what they are consenting to, or move identifiable personal data outside India without your written agreement. If the fieldwork cannot be done properly, we say so at proposal stage rather than at debrief.

How we work

Our research process

01
Discovery
We turn your business question into clear research objectives.
02
Design
Sampling, method, questionnaire and discussion guides, translated into local languages.
03
Fieldwork
Supervised field teams with GPS, audio and back-check quality control.
04
Analysis
Statistical and thematic analysis by senior researchers.
05
Insight
Board-ready reports, dashboards and workshops with clear recommendations.

Where the sector concentrates

The Indian cities that matter most for automotive

These are the markets whose own economy is built on this sector, which is where fieldwork costs least per useful interview and where the trade will actually talk to you. Each page covers automotive research in that city specifically.

Before you brief us

Frequently asked questions

What does a automotive research project cost in India?

Cost follows the sample, the seniority of the audience and the number of cities. Reaching car buyers costs a fraction of what it costs to reach fleet owners, so the audience mix moves the number far more than the headline interview count. Send a brief and you get a fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours.

Which cities should a automotive study cover?

Start where the sector concentrates — Delhi NCR, Chennai, Pune, Rajkot, Nashik — then add markets that match your distribution rather than the national map. Most clients run four to eight cities so results can be compared side by side.

How do you make sure respondents are genuinely dealers?

Each audience has its own written screener and its own frame. Respondents are de-duplicated against past projects, fieldwork is GPS- and timestamp-logged, 10% are re-contacted on a back-check and 10% of audio is audited by a supervisor who did not conduct the interview.

How long does a automotive study take?

Fieldwork of the scope described above runs 5–6 weeks, with clinics run over consecutive weekends, and the whole project is typically 8–10 weeks from sign-off to debrief. Fieldwork usually begins five to seven working days after sign-off, once screeners and translations are approved.

Which methods suit automotive research best?

For this sector we most often use product & concept testing, mystery shopping, customer satisfaction & nps, pricing research. The right combination depends on whether you need to size something, explain it or test it — a brief that names the decision gets a sharper design than one that names a method.

What safeguards apply to automotive fieldwork?

Any clinic involving a drive runs with insured vehicles, licence verification and a signed participation waiver, on closed ground wherever possible. Alongside that, all personal data is collected on informed consent, held in India, pseudonymised before analysis and deleted on an agreed schedule, in line with the DPDP Act, 2023 and the ESOMAR code.

Sector at a glance

Hub cities: 11
Audiences covered: 3
Fieldwork window: 5–6 weeks
Lead time: 8–10 weeks
Proposal: Within 24 hours

See related case studies

Keep exploring

Automotive research, city by city and method by method

Fifty cities, twenty methods and the sectors that sit closest to automotive. Each page is written for that specific combination of market and approach.

Tier 1 metros

Full-scale quantitative fieldwork, viewing-facility groups and senior automotive interviews in the eight largest markets.

Tier 2 growth markets

Forty-two cities where automotive demand is forming fastest, each covered by a supervised local field team.

Show 34 more

Sectors that sit next to this one

These most often appear in the same programme as a automotive study, either as an adjacent market or a shared audience.

All other industries

The rest of the thirty sectors we hold dedicated field and analysis experience in.

Show 17 more

Next step

Make your next automotive decision with evidence.