True Fleet registrations show continued downward trend

Britain’s True Fleet Market remained in a slump during October, representing the seventh consecutive month of decline.

The fleet segment was down by 7.2%, which led to a cumulative downslide of 4.5% after ten months.

This comes in contrast to 2016, which was a record year for fleet registrations.

Overall, the Total Market decreased by 12.2% in October, leaving it at 158,000 passenger car registrations.

Brand performance

Ford for the sixth time this year took the first spot on the fleet registrations league table, while Volkswagen placed second and Vauxhall third.

Mercedes, Audi, Nissan and BMW followed on the next four ranks. Hyundai held position eight with almost every model participating in its growth. Kia finished in ninth while Toyota jumped three positions into 10th driven by the highest growth rate (39.8%) observed inside fleet’s Top 10. It was predominantly the Aygo, Yaris and the C-HR contributing to Toyota’s growth in October.

Seat and Suzuki achieved strong performances. Seat registrations were up by 36% while the Suzuki doubled its registrations (+ 105.8%).

Alternative fuel types

Alternative fuel types are on a constant upswing. Currently, their year-to-date fleet market share is at 5.8% representing an increase of 1.3 percentage points when compared to overall 2016.

For October, the alternative segment increased by notable 40.2% year-on-year pushing its 2017’s cumulative growth towards 25.4%. October’s results originated from a wide range of different brands and models, but nonetheless, we found some models, which deserve highlighting. As already mentioned, the Toyota C-HR and the Hyundai Ioniq achieved solid registration numbers in October, but also hybrid versions of the VW Golf and Passat alongside the Kia Niro, with all these models achieving triple-digit growth rates, in addition to the well performing BMW 5 Series influenced this month’s alternative fuel outcome.