In Belgium, after a relatively weak January the true fleet market gained momentum and achieved a solid growth of 8.0% for March and 6.2% for the first quarter of 2016. At the same time the private market grew by just 3.4%.

BMW and Audi remained in the lead in the fleet market followed by Mercedes and Volkswagen. Volvo was able to raise its registrations in the first three months by 19.4% thus climbing on fifth position. At Volvo the biggest improvement was made by XC90 ranking number three within the SUV segment behind Volvo XC60 and BMW X1.

Impressive results could be reported for Ford with + 49.8% in eighth position and Skoda (ninth with + 25.3%). Within Ford the Ford Mondeo, S-Max and Focus were selling very well while at Skoda the registrations of the Superb increased by 71.6% over Q1/2015.

Outside the top 10 brands Fiat (14th position) and Land Rover (15th) saw notable growth rates of 45.5% and 56.4% respectively.

In the Netherlands, a change of CO2 taxation effective from 1 January 2016 saw the fleet market report growth of 71.5% in the last quarter and 114.1% in December as businesses were keen to purchase and register cars before the end of the year. As a result, the market dropped by 16.4% for the first three months. However Dataforce has reported that the market is improving: after a loss of 29.4% in January and 8.1% in February, the March decline dropped back to 6.3%.

Even in this challenging environment some brands performed exceptionally well. Thanks to the models Fabia and Superb, Skoda boosted its fleet registrations by 53.3% and jumped from rank number 11 to rank number four. Kia raised its volume by 166.7% and entered the top 10 brands (Q1/2015 rank number 17).