The EU-5 true fleet market is accelerating towards a strong finish for 2016, latest data from Dataforce indicates.

The EU-5 true fleet market recorded strong growth in November, with the Spanish sector seeing its best monthly performance of the year

The figure for November show that the sector was up 9.2% in November, with the year to date performance up 7.6%. Positive November and YtD figures were seen in all markets, with many reporting double-digit growth.

Notable performances included the Spanish True Fleet Market, which was up 14.9% YtD and recorded its best month of 2016 with a 28.0% rise. Big winners included Renault, which managed to push VW from the Top spot for the second time in 2016; the only manufacturer to do this. Peugeot recorded a 67.0% jump over November 2015 to take third place, beaten only by Renault in terms of growth rate (99.0%). Overall the Spanish automotive market saw an increase of 12.1% YTD and the private market saw its best month since July.

Among the top 20 model line-up, Renault dominated with five models, with worthy mentions for both the Megane and Talisman. The Peugeot 208 jumped 10 places from 15^th to fifth and the Tiguan moved 67 places from 77^th to 10^th with the second highest growth rate of 367.1% for November.

In Italy, the fleet market continued the current positive trend with growth last month of 15.9% and 18.3% YtD, although November was a little more muted than the preceding three months. The private market recovered from the October slump and achieved a 4.7% gain for November while also breaching the 1 million registration mark comfortably with a month still to go. Dataforce added that the muted growth for November still kept Italy leading the EU-5 in terms of growth but with such a strong month from Spain the YTD growth gap between the nations has narrowed to just 3.4%.

Solid 50% growth in November came from three brands within the true fleet Top 20, Jeep with 51.2%, Alfa Romeo with 58.1% and Hyundai with a 67.4%. However, the Jeep Renegade saw the highest total volume growth, pushing the model from 13^th to third place in the Top 20 models for true fleet.

Looking at France, the automotive market saw a vibrant return to positive numbers. All three market segments produced positive results, private market achieved a 2.4%, true fleets recorded a 14.6% and special channels ended with a 15.7% rise. The fleet market was also up 10.0% YtD.

Within the SUV segment, November brought lots of movement inside the Top 10 models. In term of position jumps the Dacia Duster was the winner moving from 27^th to ninth in the ranking while on the negative side the Nissan Qashqai dropped from first to fifth. The biggest percentage growth went to the Tiguan with 312.7%, securing it fourth position. However, the biggest stand out from the in-depth look at the true fleet SUV segment came from Maserati. The Maserati Levante gave the brand its best-ever month since Dataforce statistics started in 2003 and also has produced the best ever quarterly numbers with December figures still to add. Dataforce added that based on its current trajectory, the Levante may soon be challenge the likes of Porsche Cayenne or BMW X6.

Within Germany, after a slight drop in October (- 2.1%) the German True Fleet Market returned to its growth path with growth of 1.6% (YTD +5.6%). At the same time the share of fleet registrations was the highest so far in 2016 with 26.7% while the total volume represented the best November volume ever.

However only six of the top 10 brands in True Fleets raised their volumes compared to November 2015. This includes Mercedes, which saw its best market share in more than three years and closed the gap to Audi (ranked number two behind Volkswagen) to about 50 registrations. Renault (ranked eighth), Nissan (10^th) and Volvo (11^th) saw rates of expansion of 12.3%, 49.9% and 37.4% respectively in November.

Also notable was the performance from the SUV segment, which became the best-selling vehicle group in true fleets for the first time ever. With a share of 21.1%, SUVs outperformed the compact car segment (20.4%) and middle-class (19.7%), although Dataforce added that the shortfall from the first half will probably prevent the sector from becoming the strongest segment for full year 2016.

Amongst the top 10 there were three re-entries: Audi A4 (4^th, ranked 13^th in November 2015), Volkswagen Tiguan (eighth / 19^th) and Opel Astra (ninth / 17^th).

In the UK, the fleet sector’s 7.0% November growth rate marked the second-best month of the year, only outmatched by April’s 8.4% both of which helped push the year-to-date growth to 3.0%.

The two most popular brands for fleet customers, Ford and Vauxhall (Opel) both lost volume and market share in the current month while all other manufacturers within the top 10 brand ranking raised their registrations over November 2015. BMW saw a 30.0% increase, putting the Bavarian manufacturer on third position for the first time since January 2011. The 3 Series, 5 Series and X1 models contributed significantly to this positive result.

Premium brands were quite strong in November. Beside BMW, Mercedes ranked 5^th (25.4%) and Audi in 7^th (26.0%) performed above the average. The Mercedes C-Class took back the crown in the highly competitive middle-class from BMW 3 Series and the A-Class jumped from rank number six last year into third place within the compact car group.

In the SUV segment, the November results were led by Asian brands with the Nissan Qashqai in top spot followed by Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson and Nissan Juke. For all of these four models the UK is currently the most successful market within the EU-5 both for market share and especially total volume for true fleet.