Record year for French and German True Fleet markets
For both the French and German True Fleet markets, 2016 has proved to be a record year, the latest figures released by Dataforce reveal.
At 829,000 new car registrations last year, the True Fleet segment in Germany celebrated its best result ever. The figure was up 5.3% over 2015, which had been a record year as well. True Fleet sales were up year-on-year for ten of the previous twelve months. Only the fourth quarter was less impressive.
Market leader Volkswagen saw its True Fleet sales decline somewhat, but the next eight best-selling fleet brands all increased their volume. Ford and Skoda even registered double-digit growth (+11.5% and +10.2% respectively). Ford's success was due to excellent sales for its Galaxy and S-Max vans, as well as for its Edge SUV and Mustang sports car. The Skoda Superb (pictured) surged 130%.
Ford and Skoda were preceded in the brand rankings by Audi, BMW and Mercedes, and followed by Opel, Renault and Seat. Nissan achieved Top-Ten status with an impressive 48.4% year-on-year sales growth.
In France, the True Fleet market grew by 9% over 2016 to a record 467,000 new car registrations. This contrasted sharply with the flat private market (+0.3%), and resulted in a higher than ever before share of the overall market for True Fleets (23.2%).
True Fleet Market leader Renault achieved double-digit growth (+11.4%), and was followed in the rankings by Peugeot, Citroen, VW, BMW, Audi and Mercedes – the latter three also growing by double digits. Nissan, Ford and Opel complete the Top Ten.
Model-wise, the French True Fleet market is dominated by home brands, with the VW Golf the first non-French one on #12. In the rest of the Top Twenty, the Nissan Qashqai, VW Passat and Audi A4 were the only other foreign models which found favour with True Fleet buyers. After eight years of consecutive growth, the SUV segment in 2016 grew to 29.5%, finally overtaking Small Cars as the biggest True Fleet segment in France.
Image © Michel de Vries, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE