Prospects for Innovative Development of World Automotive Market in Digital Economy

Digital transformation, creating new digital enterprises, products and business models, is changing the structure of industries. Automotive, as a high-tech industry, ranking the third in the world in terms of R&D costs, is now becoming one of the leading drivers in the development of the digital economy. The aim of this work is to study the digital technology impact on the product and regional structure of the global automotive market, as well as to assess the prospects for its innovative development. The work analyzes main trends in the automotive market, explores the R&D activity and R&D efficiency of the world's leading automakers, presents a forecast for the innovative development of the industry under the influence of digital technologies. The research results conducted in the work show that the main trends that have the most significant consequences for the future development of the automotive market in the context of its digitalization are emergence of fundamentally new digital products (autonomous, connected cars) and digital services (mobility services), as well as a change in the quality of consumer demand caused by the development of innovative technologies. Adapting new digital products and services to the needs of individual customers through the creation of an appropriate digital strategy will allow existing automotive enterprises to enter the emerging markets and win the growing digital competition with innovative startups.