Is the True Fleet Market in France on its way back?

After a very bumpy start to 2017 with four consecutive months of declining volumes, the French True Fleet Market has finally come back into growth with + 5.1% over May 2016. This positive result helped to reduce the year-to-date loss from – 7.2% to – 4.9%. The Total Market finished with 191,000 registrations equating to a + 8.9% growth rate. With the recent election of the pro-euro Emmanuel Macron to the presidency perhaps this is the swing needed to generate a promising comeback for fleet business and add a further boost to the private channel in France.

Let’s have a look at the brand ranking. The two brands in the lead both had a very strong month, Renault scored a surplus of + 22.1% followed by Peugeot with even higher + 31.6%. The combined market share of these two is close to 48% in fleets whereas it’s “only” 33.1% in the Private Market.

Mercedes (ranked 5^th behind Citroën and Volkswagen) and Audi in 6^th place both gained two positions on the ladder. The Top-10 was completed by BMW, Ford, Nissan and Toyota, with the Japanese manufacturer able to overtake both Fiat and Opel with an impressive increase of + 38.4%.

The Top-2 vehicle segments performed pretty well with growth rates of + 8.7% (SUV) and + 14.6% (Small cars) but the Compact Car segment in third position took a hit declining by – 5.8%. Within this group however there was an interesting change. From April 2014 until April 2017 Peugeot’s 308 has remained in the lead but in May ’17 it was the Renault Megane who was able to overtake grabbing the #1 spot on the podium for the first time since March 2014. Looking into the Megane’s most preferred model version there’s further proof of just how different Fleet and Private customers are: Fleets tend to opt for diesel (86% share in May) while it’s almost 50/50 for diesel and petrol in the Private market. And the share of the estate version in companies is more than double the height of private consumer share (47% vs. 20%).

In the SUV segment we can see a very impressive new entry. Launched only two months ago the Peugeot 5008 is already ranked 4^th in May behind Peugeot 2008, Renault Kadjar and Volkswagen Tiguan. Certainly a remarkable performance and probably only a matter of time before this model enters the True Fleet Top 3. However in the Private Market it’s still has long way to go, taking into account that the 5008 ranked only 27^th last month.