Ford has “systematically reduced” its rental registrations from almost 40% of its fleet business in 2006 to just over 20% in 2014 and will make further reductions this year as it focuses on maintaining residual values.

Last year rental fell to 43,491 units, a decrease of 3,874 units or 8.2% on 2013.

Mark Ovenden (pictured), Ford of Britain chairman and managing director, said his priority for 2015 was to “hold ground” on retail and exploit a “big opportunity” to grow share in the net fleet sector, particularly with the Focus and Mondeo.

“Rental is getting close to where we want it to be. Ideally we’d like a 15% share – we’d want to be identical in every channel,” Ovenden said. “You can’t get that, but we do want a reasonably balanced business so we won’t oversupply the market.

“It takes discipline when you are under pressure to hit numbers but you can’t default into short cycle.”

He added: “We have opportunities in fleet across the board but especially in contract hire with the increases in residual values and reductions in short cycle. We also see Motability as a growth target.”

More articles on: