2023 Connected Car Consumer Survey - Understanding the connected service funnel: Consumer activation, subscription and usage

To understand consumer sentiment toward S&P Global Mobility forecast technologies, the Connected Car and Consumer Insights research teams conduct an annual consumer survey that serves as a quantitative input to the forecast. By asking vehicle owners of certain model years a series of questions to gauge activation decisions, subscription lengths and costs, feature desirability, and willingness to pay, Mobility analysts are able to develop the Feature Desirability and Willingness to Pay indexes, along with activation rates that are then factored into the Connected Car Forecasts. Through statistical analysis and machine learning, Mobility analysts are able to extract key factors and weights (coefficients) that explain an application’s feature desirability score and how much consumers are willing to pay for it.

The 2023 Connected Car Consumer Survey asked almost 8,000 participants around the world questions regarding vehicle connected services to understand consumer sentiment toward connected features and paid functional updates, feature preferences, as well as their willingness to pay. Results showed respondents most commonly subscribed to safety and security-related connected features and services over maintenance and navigation. More than half had purchased paid functional updates, typically in safety or navigation features. Overall, respondents increasingly trust automakers with their vehicle data over technology companies.