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How to calculate the number of commercial cars in Germany?

Bain BCG Market sizing Mck
Recent activity on Jan 06, 2019
2 Answers
2.4 k Views
Anonymous A asked on Jan 04, 2019

Wondering how to approach this market sizing question?

My first thought was something like:

1) Clarify scope: Clarify the scope of commercial vehicles in scope (i.e. trucks, buses, fire fighter cars, emergency cars...)

2) Estimate share: Estimate the number for one segment and make an assumption of the share this segment has of the overall market (i.e. trucks will account for 30%?)

3) Estimate the number of one segment: Calculate the number of trucks:

  • Supply side or demand side approach could be possible: e.g. demand could be narrowed down by looking at major users of trucks - supermarkets, assume one truck could cover two supermarkets per day, supermarkets need to be replenished once per day - estimate the total number of supermarkets and try to estimate how many trucks are required to supply them
  • Make an assumption what the share of supermarkets as truck customers is (e.g. supermarkets account for 30%)

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Best answer
Vlad
Expert
replied on Jan 06, 2019
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi!

Here is another approach:

  1. Start with calculating private vehicles (using the households)
  2. Make an assumption re commercial / private ratio (e.g. every 5th vehicle I see in the street is commercial)

Best

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Guennael
Expert
replied on Jan 05, 2019
Ex-MBB, Experienced Hire; I will teach you not only the how, but also the why of case interviews

That works!

There are various ways to get there. Another one for example would be to estimate the number of vehicles by inhabitants x nb of people in germany x multiplier to account for buses, trucks....

Make sure to do a sanity check at the end: if you find 8 millions or 800 millions, it is probably wrong for a country of 80-90 million.

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