German true fleet registrations and overall new car registrations declined in February, latest Dataforce figures show.

Renault’s Captur bucks the trend by being popular with both fleet and private buyers, says Dataforce.

The true fleet market dropped -6.7% last month compared to February 2016 – even taking into account that February 2017 had one working day less than last year the result was still negative. The total market was also down, with a fall of -2.6% to a little over 243,000 registrations.

Market leader Volkswagen lost almost two percent of its market share for true fleet but the new Tiguan was +30.6% and recorded its highest-ever level of fleet registrations for the month with a share of 12.4% (year-to-date February) followed by Audi Q5 (7.6%) and Mercedes GLC (6.4%). The growth comes prior to the H2 launch of the seven-seater Tiguan Allspace which debuted at the Geneva Motor Show.
Mercedes jumped from rank number four overall into second position but was only separated by third-placed Audi  by 18 registrations. Behind BMW, Ford, Skoda and Opel, the top 10 was completed by Renault (+39.1%), SEAT (+22.5%) and Toyota (+23.3%). With 2.3%, the latter scored its highest market share since September 2009, helped in particular by the new C-HR crossover. SEAT saw similar siutaiton with the new SUV Ateca already ranking second in the Spanish manufacturer’s true fleet line-up.

Dataforce also looked at the most preferred models for private and fleet customers and found that most company car drivers prefer a higher vehicle segment as you can see at VW (Golf instead of Polo), Mercedes (C-Class/A-Class) or BMW (3 Series/1 Series). Within the Audi and SEAT line-ups, most private customers opt for an SUV (Q2, Ateca) instead of a more traditional compact or middle class car. However, at Renault the Captur is the lead model for both groups.

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