The study, which was conducted in the United States found that among the top 25 brands, Buick ranked highest in 2022 of women’s share of brand, at 55 percent of personal new vehicle registrations, followed by Mitsubishi, Mini, Lexus, Infiniti, Mazda, and Kia. In terms of total volumes of personal vehicles registered to women in 2022, Toyota clearly ranked above all other brands.

On the flip side, Ram placed lowest with just 17 percent of new personal vehicle registrations going to women, followed by GMC, Ford, Tesla, and Dodge. The bottom-two brands’ reliance on trucks is reflected in their male bias. Tesla is the outlier there, showing that despite the success of its Model Y compact SUV in a strongly female segment, its personal vehicle registrations have a decidedly male skew.

Brands with lowest female buyer representation

• Ram – 17 percent
• GMC – 28.7 percent
• Ford – 31.1 percent
• Tesla – 33.1 percent
• Dodge – 33.9 percent

Although share of brand is one way to examine demographic preferences, overall volume registrations to women consumers also is a critical measurement.

On a pure volume level, Toyota secured the most hearts and minds of women car buyers in the U.S. in 2022 by hundreds of thousands of personal registrations.

• Toyota – 606,985
• Honda – 363,799
• Chevrolet – 340,999
• Ford – 313,477
• Hyundai – 294,380

Why the importance of attracting the female audience? For one thing, women make up 49.80 percent of the population (based on a 2021 Philippine census), and influence most vehicle purchases.

Additionally, women buyers consistently show more brand loyalty than men, on average 4 percentage points more likely to stick with the same brand, according to S&P Global Mobility. Female brand loyalty figures are even higher for the brands with the highest percentage of women buyers: 9.2 percentage points more loyal than men for Mini vehicles, 7.6 for Mitsubishi, 5.2 for Lexus and Infiniti, and 4.3 for Buick. The only mainstream full-line brand with higher loyalty among men than women was Ford.

Why the success for Buick? According to Marc Bland, chief diversity officer for S&P Global Mobility, some of the success comes from GM’s extra focus on female buyers: “The majority of the OEMs now have a minority dealer organization, but GM takes it a step further: They have a Women’s Retail Network (WRN).”

Members of GM’s WRN include all female dealer principals and department managers. The group holds annual meetings with briefings about best practices, ensuring strong and equitable representation across GM’s entire dealership network. The WRN also launched a scholarship for women entering automotive-related fields of study more than a decade ago.

“How consumers are treated at the dealership is important,” said Cheryl Woodworth, associate director of consulting for S&P Global Mobility. “The evolution of the car-buying process, entailing less negotiation and with potentially more of the buying process online, is very appealing to women.”

Safety is also a top priority for women buyers, and the US auto industry’s only female CEO made that a top priority for GM. One of Mary Barra’s first initiatives was Speak Up for Safety—an initiative stemming from GM’s ignition switch recall—that created a framework for employees to call out perceived safety risks in any meeting.

“Those kinds of things resonate out from GM’s 200,000 employees, to their dinner tables, their families, their extended families and friends,” Bland said. “It creates this cloud that GM has safety at its core.”

But not all GM brands are seeing this boost. Cadillac and Chevrolet both placed in the bottom-half of rankings, with truck-heavy GMC near the bottom.