The data shows that the 10.8% fleet growth rate was almost equalled by a 10.8% performance in December. For the year as a whole, the only market that didn’t achieve a double-digit growth rate was Germany but in the end only 476 registrations were missing in order to achieve a plus of 10%!

The firm added that fleet business is becoming more important for the manufacturers, accounting for 25.0% of all new passenger car registrations among the EU-5 markets.

France

The True Fleet volume in December outperformed December 2014 by 24.3%, marking the highest growth rate in 2015. In addition the share of True Fleets in December reached an all-time record with 25.4%. This great performance pushed the increase for the full year 2015 above 10% while private customers registered 2.5% more new passenger cars compared to the previous year.

The top four brands in the True Fleets ranking remained unchanged, with the French manufacturers Renault, Peugeot and Citroen in the lead followed by Volkswagen. BMW in fifth position (+21.8%) and Nissan (7th, +35.5%) showed very strong results both gaining one position. The same holds true for Opel, which was able to enter the top 10 again with a considerable increase of 31.8%.

Germany

Due to the strong performance of both True Fleets and Special Channels, the passenger car market in Germany was able to grow by 5.6% and to surpass 3.2 million new registrations for the first time since 2009.

With 786,723 new registrations in 2015, the True Fleet Market reached its highest yearly volume since Dataforce started analysing the German Market back in 2001. Compared to 2014 registrations on True Fleets grew by 9.9%. In December 2015 the share for True Fleets reached a new peak with 28.3%.

Despite a positive result in December (+3.3% over December 2014) this year was the weakest so far for Private Market although last year’s volume was only slightly missed (-0.1%).

Volkswagen (+12.7%) is still the market leader followed by Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Ford. Within the top 10 brands the ranking remained unchanged with one exception: Hyundai was able toget in 10th position by displacing Toyota.

Italy

With an increase of 18.0% the December performance of the Italian True Fleet Market was very much in line with the overall result for 2015 (+18.2%). With more than 290,000 new registrations True Fleet Market in Italy reached its highest yearly volume since 2008. Beside the sheer volume the share of 18.0% (full year) for this market channel is clearly indicating its importance.The brand ranking remained unaltered on position one to five with Fiat in the lead followed by Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes and BMW. Peugeot on sixth position was able to raise its registrations by 43.5% passing Ford despite a very positive result of 34.7% for Ford as well. Another striking result could be reported for Citroen (rank number nine) with a growth of even 43.7% over 2014.

The most successful new entry was Fiat’s 500X, which reached seventh position in the model ranking in True Fleets, only 272 registrations behind Fiat 500. The second best improvement by growth in absolute figures was achieved by the Jeep Renegade, which entered the Top-10 models in 2015 in ninth position.

Spain

In 10 out of the 12 months in 2015 growth for True Fleets in Spain surpassed 25%. Only in October and November did rates dip below this, with 11.3 and 19.2% respectively. The overall result for 2015 is on an amazingly high level with 28.3%. Dataforce added that the label ‘recovery’ seems to be more than justifiable taking into account that 2015 was the best year in terms of volume since 2008 both for Total Market and True Fleets.

The top 20 brands all showed very positive results; 18 of them even reached a double-digit growth rate over 2014. Volkswagen, Renault and Peugeot occupied the podium followed by BMW (+40.8%) climbing from rank number eight to four. Nissan in ninth position was very remarkable with a growth of more than 80% over 2014. The Qashqai (number one in the SUV segment) and X-Trail especially contributed to this success but Juke and Pulsar were important as well for their impressive performance.

UK

Despite yet another strong result the previous year, the biggest True Fleet Market in Europe grew again, rising by 6.2% and recording more than 900,000 new car registrations on fleet customers. But the last quarter of 2015 was already a bit bumpy with a drop of 0.6%.

Opel/Vauxhall and Ford are still market leaders representing 25.4% of all True Fleet registrations but this share is two percentage points lower than last year. Within the top 10 brands the most significant increase could be seen for Mercedes (rank number five, +21.8%), Hyundai (9th, +25.8%) and Citroen (10th, +22.4%).

In the UK, the SUV has become the strongest segment in True Fleets. Occupying the number two slot behind Compact Cars in 2014 the SUV increased its volume by 30.2% last year, now representing 26.7% of all new passenger car registrations for fleet customers. Ranking all models by growth in absolute volume you can find three SUVs in the lead with Vauxhall Mokka, Ford Kuga and Mitsubishi Outlander.