There are over 60 million Hispanics are living in the United States and their purchasing power hit $1.7 trillion in 2020, up from $210 billion in 1990! The U.S. Hispanic population continues to grow rapidly, accounting for around half of all U.S. births.
Many states are facing rapidly changing Hispanic demographics. Texas ranks #2 and has a Hispanic to white population growth of 9:1, and that same population is expected to become the largest sub-group in the state this year. North Carolina's population, on the other hand, is much smaller, but is also growing rapidly reaching 1 million in 2019. Next, while New York has the fourth-largest concentration of Hispanics in the U.S., their spending power is $170 billion, around 10% of the national average.
Next, the U.S. Hispanic population is very young with a median age of about 30. Compare this with the national average of 38 years, and you can see long-term value in building with the Hispanic community around your dealership. Thinking more broadly about these stats, it is no wonder that U.S. Hispanics are fueling the growth of several key segments of the economy, including the auto industry.
These numbers are no joke. If you are a dealership and you don't know the volume and composition of the Hispanic market around you, then you are making a big mistake. So let's look at the data first, starting with last year's survey and then the highlights of this year's.
We did our first Hispanic Car Buyers survey in early 2020, just before COVID changed everyone's lives.
In 2020, 58% of our respondents were women, and 42% were men. Over half the respondents were 18-31 years of age. Add just seven more years, and the number jumped above 75%.
Five things stand out from last year:
In this year's survey, we sought to overlap but not completely mimic last year's survey. Consequently, we dug deeper to understand Hispanic online buying behavior. Our sample composition is very similar to last year's, although we had more who were 45 and older. The distribution breaks down in the following way:
As with last year's survey, we hope that this data will encourage executive management at car dealerships and advertising agencies to explore marketing to the community, even if they start with baby steps. The U.S. Hispanic market is growing too fast to ignore and their buying power is exploding. Failing to connect with them will leave any dealership with a large Hispanic population at a disadvantage, especially when competitors act first.
Massive amounts of data show that U.S. Hispanics are becoming a financial juggernaut in America. Still, yet they are often ignored in advertising either culturally or through the use of Spanish language marketing.
If the stats in the introduction are not enough proof that U.S. Hispanics are becoming financially powerful, perhaps a current article in the Wall Street Journal will help convince you. According to the WSJ, in 2020, the number of U.S. Hispanic homeowners rose by more than 700,000, the largest 1-year increase in 20 years… and that was during a pandemic!
So what are the highlights of this year's survey and what do they tell us?
For this first article, we gave you an overview of our 2021 study and its highlights. Our next article will delve into raw stats, and our interpretations, around search and shopping behavior of U.S. Hispanics. In the meantime, think about what this article series means to you as a dealer. Do you know the size and composition of the Hispanic community around your dealership? Are you marketing to your local Hispanic community? If your answer is negative for either of those questions, then drop us an email, and we'll give you a hand.
Listen to the podcast inspired by this article
Adam has worked in the automotive industry for over 20 years. SurgeMetrix, which Adam founded, provides bilingual Google optimized websites (read as “fast websites”), Google My Business optimization apps, and a specialization in Hispanic marketing. For Hispanic marketing, Adam and his team demonstrate what dealers need to do to capture the Hispanic market and adapt their processes for bilingual sales. Adam started in automotive in 2000 when he founded a SaaS company that provided website, inventory and lead tracking solutions to auto dealers from across the US.
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