German true fleet registrations put in their best-ever performance last year, new figures from Dataforce show.

With almost 829,000 new passenger car registrations, the market rose 5.3%.

With almost 829,000 new passenger car registrations, the market rose 5.3% compared to 2015 – itself a record year. December growth was up 2.2% although the fourth quarter was not as impressive as the first three. Overall, 10 out of 12 months were up compared to the same period in 2015.

 All top nine brands retained their positions in 2016 and also saw increased volume apart from first-placed Volkswagen. Audi, BMW and Mercedes took the second, third and fourth slots respectively while Ford and Skoda both raised their fleet registrations with double-digit growth rates (+11.5% and +10.2% respectively). Opel, Renault and SEAT while Nissan entered the top 10 with performance up +48.4%.

Within Ford, the latest Galaxy and S-Max models formed the biggest part of the carmaker’s growth, supported in volume growth by the new Ford Edge and the Mustang, which showed itself to be popular not just with retail buyers but also fleets, sitting just below the Audi TT and six places above the Mazda MX-5 in the true fleet model ranking for the year.

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