April saw the highest growth rate for the German true fleet sector since May 2017 as the overall passenger car market also saw strong growth.

The Toyota C-HR helped the brand to post strong true fleet growth in April

Latest analysis by Mario Zagar at Dataforce shows the total market rose 8.0% last month compared to April 2017, reaching around 314,000 registrations. Both the true fleet (+13.2%) and private market (+19.4%) saw double-digit growth rates, which for the fleet channel equated to the highest percentage growth since May 2017, helping to generate a surplus of 4.1% for January-April. Although the volume of self-registrations on dealerships and car manufacturers dipped, while the Rent-a-Car volume dropped significantly (‑1.8% and -7.9% respectively) in April, the total volume in the German True Fleet Market for the first four months of the year is the highest ever, bringing a real possibility that 2018 will be yet another record year.

Within the true fleet top 10 table, a total of nine brands managed to increase their registrations by at least 10% over last year’s April. Only Toyota (ninth) and SEAT (tenth) swapped their positions. Toyota’s rise was driven by a 74.8% increase and April became the first month in which more than 2,000 Toyotas have been registered as company cars in Germany. Meanwhile its market share of 2.8% has only been surpassed once previously (September 2007). Alongside the CH-R, the biggest growth by absolute volume was scored by Yaris and Aygo while the Proace exactly doubled its registrations.

Outside the top 10, Volvo saw strong growth with a +48.8% rise, pushing it into rank 11 from 14, overtaking Peugeot, Fiat and Hyundai. Growth was driven by the brand-new XC40, the XC60 and the XC90 with some additional support from the V90. Two out of three true fleet Volvo registrations in April were for SUVs.