NEW YORK -

If your Asian brand franchise dealership is seeing less showroom or online traffic, here’s the potential reason why. TNS survey results revealed Monday showed appeal for vehicles by brands from Japan or Korea is slipping because of the earthquake and tsunami catastrophe that struck Japan on March 11.

TNS discovered more than 25 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed are less likely to purchase a vehicle made by a nameplate from Japan or Korea.

Furthermore survey orchestrators asked respondents to identify which brands they felt would be the most impacted by the natural catastrophe. They found Toyota ranked the highest among Japanese brands with 63 percent feeling it would be the most impacted.  Honda (47 percent), Mitsubishi (43 percent), Nissan (43 percent) and Mazda (30 percent) comprised the top five.

The survey — which was conducted earlier this month — indicated Subaru received the least mentions of being impacted at 26 percent.

Surprisingly, TNS learned Hyundai and Kia, Korean manufacturers, were mentioned by 21 percent of the respondents as being impacted.

“There may be some confusion on the part of the average U.S. consumer that these brands are Japanese instead of Korean, or have manufacturing locations in the region impacted by the disaster,” explained William Bruno, vice president for TNS.

“Subaru, on the other hand, may be more strongly perceived as having domestic manufacturing locations,” Bruno continued.

TNS believes U.S. consumer concerns highlighted by this study are translating into reduced purchase consideration of impacted brands as 27 percent of consumers surveyed said they are less likely to consider purchasing these brands. 

The firm determined the major concerns lies in the perceived notion of limited availability of parts (46 percent), as well as an overall increase in price of the vehicle (37 percent) as well as the idea that with the shortage, the price of parts will also increase (36 percent).

“As impacted manufacturers work through solutions to the manufacturing and supply chains issues caused by the disaster, it will be important to clearly communicate these to consumers in the U.S. market,” Bruno stressed.

“Those brands that have not been impacted by the disaster should be sure to reaffirm this with their target customers through advertising and dealer communications programs,” he concluded.