Passenger car market in July 2019
In July, passenger car registrations fell slightly compared to the corresponding prior year’s month (- 0.8%). While commercial registrations eked out positively (+ 0.2%), the Private market declined by 1.7%. Within the commercial channels, it was once again the Dealer/Manufacturer segment (+ 8.6%) being responsible for the growth. By contrast, the True Fleet market (- 2.7%) and registrations of Short-Term Rentals (- 7.7%) declined year-on-year.
True Fleets seemingly more robust
Despite the repeated losses, the True Fleet market proved to be healthier than in the first half of the year, with only 137 company car registrations less than in the same month last year. This can also be seen when looking at the various regions. For example, in Eastern Switzerland (+ 20.3%), Northwestern Switzerland (+ 7.6%), the Zurich region (+ 7.2%) and Central Switzerland (+ 2.0%), some significant growth was recorded in the company car segment. An even more detailed look shows that in addition to other cantons Thurgau (+ 48.4%), Basel-Stadt (+ 23.4%), Basel-Landschaft (+ 13.9%), Zug (+ 13.3%), St. Gallen (+ 9.5%) and Zurich (+ 7.2%) were largely responsible for this development.
At brand level, there were more winners than losers within the top 10 company cars. In terms of percentage growth, Skoda led the ranking with an increase of 37.1 %, ahead of SEAT (+ 36.2%) and Mercedes (+ 32.5%). In addition, Toyota (+ 15.3%), Ford (+ 14.0%) and Volvo (+ 13.9%) also achieved some notable growth. The Ford Focus (+ 221.1%), the Volvo XC40 (+ 147.8%) and the Mercedes C-Class (+ 100.0%) achieved the highest growth among the 20 most registered fleet models in comparison to July 2018.
Alternative fuel types finding their way into Swiss fleets
In July, companies made less use of petrol (- 8.7 %) or diesel cars (- 4.8 %). The growth of the so-called mild hybrids (vehicles with 48-volt battery systems) which Dataforce also includes in these fuel categories, could hardly weaken this trend. In the first seven months of the year, registrations of petrol and diesel cars in the True Fleet market fell by 15.3 % and 6.0 % respectively. On the other hand, alternative fuel types recorded significant growth, especially electric vehicles, which increased by 174.3% over July. From a YTD perspective, over 75 % more electric vehicles found their place in vehicle fleets than in the same period last year. The fleet ranking of electric cars in the first seven months of 2019 is led by Tesla Model 3 with over 600 registrations, followed by the Renault Zoe, BMW‘s i3, the Hyundai Kona, the Nissan Leaf and the Jaguar I-Pace.