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25 AutoData | July 2018 SYMBIOSIS Believe it: Hilux helps Toyota sell more Corolla. On the other hand the Civic does not have a pickup truck to serve as a friend cellent predicates, such as Civic, which had to be satisfied with 18.3% of sales of this segment, and Cruze, 14%. And models such as Jetta, Focus Sedan, Sentra and C4 Lounge registered minimum shares, at 3% market share. Another positive highlight is Onix, which simply dominates one-third of the extre- mely disputed range of compact hatches, making other models such as HB20, San- dero and even the newPolo andArgo fight for the remaining two-thirds. Fiesta and March have rates close to 3% and the bro- thers 208 and C3 half of it, each. According to market specialists it is not just a specific characteristic of the lo- cal buyer that creates this scenario, but a group of characteristics. ALWAYS THE SAME For Roger Armellini, current sales and service manager and former marketing manager at Toyota, the average Brazilian standard for the purchase of a 0 KM mo- del can be considered conservative. For one simple reason: “The customer here is not mature in terms of cars per capita, the customer is conservative. This happens a bit because the person who buys a new car is essentially that onewho always buys, there is not much new people entering the market”. Antônio Jorge, coordinator of the MBA Automotive of FGV (Getúlio Vargas Foun- dation), agrees with this vision: “In general, the Brazilian buyer is a traditionalist, prefers safety”. Rafael Davoli, general director of the group that brings his last name and that for sixty years has dealerships in the Vale do Paraíba and North Coast region of São Paulo, sees it in a different way: “The buyers may be conservative, but at the same time they let themselves be seduced for novel- ties. The Renegade and Compass Jeeps and Hyundai Creta are good examples of this”. Gallo Cristiano, manager market rese- arch & value proposition of FCA for Latin Disclousure/Toyota America, goes in the same direction: “The Brazilian customers have shown them- selves much more open. We can say, for example, the success of the delivery apps. This way we observe that the attitude is changing and, yes, the customer has been becoming gradually less conservative”. Amos Lee Harris Jr, a consultant at UniAuto, Automotive University, and au- thor of books about vehicles market, such as Automóvel: Quer Vender? (Automo- blies: Do you want to sell?), coincidentally nowadays he lives in the same region of Davoli, in Vale do Paraíba. And he points out another characteristic of the national customer that helps explain a certain tra- ditionalist profile: “Here in the region if the person has to pay tolls to go to the dealership, this person will not go. Crossing the border to Rio de Janeiro, then, no way. This way, the brands that havemore dealerships, like the big ones, end up doing better .” Another point that experts show is that the customer here is still very concerned about the resale value. And this ends up by creating a spiral that, when it is strong, is very difficult to be broken: the car that sells a lot sells even more because popu- larity gives it greater ease in reselling and, therefore, better profitability.