French true fleet registrations fell last month, following record growth in 2016, latest data shows.
The figures from Dataforce show a decline of -1.5% last month for the sector, although it was still the 2nd highest January on record for True Fleet since Dataforce statistics started in 2004.

In total the passenger car Market recorded growth of +10.6% and registered a little over 153,000 vehicles again, making this the best January volume since 2012. Private and dealership/manufacturer showed healthy gains over Jan 2016 but it was the short-term rental market showing by far the most interesting gain, achieving a +51.9% rise.

Although the majority of the 51.9% gain came from the home-grown manufacturers of Peugeot, Citroen and Renault, Ford saw +696.4% growth and Nissan recorded +181.5%. From Nissan the SUV segment was predominantly where those gains were made, firstly with the Juke followed by the X-Trail and then the Qashqai in comparison to January 2016. Ford’s highest percentage growth gains were spread over three vehicle segments, C-Max in the Mini-Van segment came in third, Kuga in the SUV segment in second but the Focus came in first, achieving 26.7% of all the carmaker’s short term rental registrations for January 2017, in comparison to a January 2016 result of 3.6%

Looking at the manufacturer rankings for true fleet, the Top 10 remained the same with only place changes for January. Renault in first and Peugeot in second swapped places when compared to last year. But third, fourth, fifth and sixth places remained the same for Citroen, VW, BMW and Audi respectively. Ford in seventh and Toyota in eighth each jumped a place at the expense of Nissan, which in ninth dropped two places. Mercedes finished out the top 10, retaining its 10th position but only just with Fiat hot on its heels.

Looking at fuel types for true fleet, Dataforce reported an ever-increasing amount of hybrid registrations and, as more manufacturers add hybrids to their SUV engine line-ups, it could overtake Petrol as the second most common fuel type in the SUV segment even though the hybrid bonus is scheduled to expire in March. Over Jan 2016 to Jan 2017 it has more than doubled its share in the segment moving from 3.9% to 8.5% whereas petrol has moved from 12.7% in Jan 2016 to 9.5% in Jan 2017. Toyota leads the way but with Kia entering the fray with Niro, Audi bringing the Q7 and even Mercedes introducing the GLC, the market look set to continue its growth. As for models, the Toyota C‑HR became the top registered hybrid for true fleet SUV in January 2017, knocking out its stable mate the Rav4 which has held the top spot for the last six months in a row.