All five markets showed positive results, especially Spain and Italy, while several carmakers saw growth across the countries, including premium brands Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover and Maserati as well as Kia, Renault, Suzuki and Toyota.

In France, following a minor loss of -1.3% in July the fleet market returned to growth in August with +7.7%. The cumulative growth for True Fleets for January-August amounts to +11.9%, which is significantly better than for private customers +1.4%.

Renault led the fleet market for the seventh month in a row but second-placed Peugeot was close behind with a gap of only 71 registrations. Mercedes grew by 54.1% and jumped in fifth position behind Citroen and Volkswagen, while its market share reached an all-time high of 6.4%. The top 10 in August was completed by BMW, Audi, Ford, Nissan and Toyota. After five months in the lead Renault Clio was overtaken by two Peugeot models with the 308 in first place but only 40 registrations ahead of the smaller 208. The first ‘non-French’ model can be found on rank number 10 with the Volkswagen Golf.

Germany also saw fleet market growth of +7.7% in August, keeping the year-on-year growth on a high level (+6.7%) after a clear drop in July with -7.3%. Eight out of the top 10 brands were able to increase their volumes over August 2015. The most impressive growth rates however were gained by the manufacturers on ranks number 8-10, namely Renault (+24.3%), Seat (+20.3%) and Nissan (+92.7%). Seat and Nissan even achieved new records in terms of true fleet market share! Market leader Volkswagen saw a slight downturn (-0.7%) but stayed on top and there were notable results within the brand itself. In August the Tiguan led the SUV segment and pushed its volume by no less than 165% but scored both its highest volume and highest market share in the German fleet market so far.

The Italian fleet market saw growth of +24.8% in August – the second highest in 2016 so far; only May was even stronger with more than 29%. For 7 out of the top 10 brands the new car registrations improved by more than 20% over last year’s August. Fiat’s rise was almost exactly the same as the average across all brands, ensuring the share of the Italian market leader remained unchanged with 17.8%. The Fiat Tipo gained in importance and was number four in the Compact Car segment in August behind Volkswagen Golf, Peugeot 308 and Audi A3, already outperforming some well-established competitors like Opel Astra or Ford Focus. Audi (+30.6%) ranked on number two, followed by BMW and Volkswagen. Mercedes jumped on fifth position (August 2015 rank number seven) with a growth of 41.8%. Top seller within Mercedes is the A-Class and this model also achieved the biggest improvement in terms of volume over last year.

August results for Spain (up +25.2%) show that, alongside Italy, it’s the only EU-5 market with growing true fleet registrations for all eight months from January to August. The positive trend was shared by a huge amount of manufacturers. The first brand to record decreasing volume was ranked in number 14. Significant improvements were accomplished by Renault and Ford both in terms of growth rates (+42.5% and +48.1%) and in higher ranking positions (Renault was up from 8th to 3rd; Ford from 9th to 4th). Within Renault the biggest part of the increase was caused by the Clio and the all new Talisman but models like Scenic, Captur and Kadjar were in good shape as well. At Ford the two most popular models, Focus and Mondeo grew by 45% and 125% respectively and the all new SUV Edge also contributed to the very positive result in August.

In the UK, despite potential head-winds due to Brexit discussions, the figures for August were not as bad as possibly anticipated. After two months of decline, the fleet market reported an increase by 0.4% while the private market saw the fifth month in a row of decreasing registrations. Behind the two market leaders Ford and Opel/Vauxhall (which both didn’t reach the reference values from August 2015) Mercedes ranked third with a significant rise of 23.5% which was mainly due to two models: the A-Class gained five positions (+52.6%, now ranking 7th) and the C-Class almost entered the top 10 after being 17th last year. Audi in fourth place was highly consistent by adding one single registration compared to last year’s August. BMW (+68.6%, rank number six) and Kia (+78.1%, rank number ten) also had strong results. Outside the top 10 especially Seat (14th and with a new all-time record market share) and Land Rover (18th, +149%) record strong performances.