Alain Visser joined Volvo Cars as vice president sales operations within Marketing, Sales and Customer Service in September 2012 after working at both Ford and General Motors. He took over as senior vice president marketing, sales and customer service in July 2013.

We caught up with him at the recent Frankfurt Show: ‘The interesting thing about our fleet business is that it’s very different by market. As you know, it’s a very high percentage in the UK market. For us it goes from 80% of the business in markets like Belgium to about 10% of the business in markets like China. So we see some markets where the fleet business is very mature, as in the UK and in some markets where it is only starting to pick up, like in China, which is probably the most extreme example.’

It’s clear too that Volvo is serious about fleet business: ‘We believe that the biggest growth potential overall from a Volvo point of view is in the fleet segment,’ continues Mr Visser. He believes there are two reasons for this: ‘One is the growth in the new emerging markets where the fleet business is still very small. Secondly because we see the fleet part of the business growing as more and more companies offer company cars as an alternative remuneration system. So we see the fleet market growing and we see the new emerging markets with enormous potential for the fleet market to grow and evolve.’

The potential for the automotive sector as a whole is enormous in markets like China, so would he expect to see some delay before the fleet sector really starts to expand? ‘Absolutely. That’s a trend we have seen everywhere in the world in emerging markets and I would be very surprised if it’s any different in China. I think we will see increasing growth in China, particularly driven by private business and then I think the fleet business will pick up as well, but it always comes later,’ says Mr Visser.

While the car market in China continues to grow, Europe is only now starting to show signs of a fragile recovery. ‘We monitor the European situation very closely, on a month-by-month basis and you could say that in fact from the major countries, the UK is the only market that has been pretty stable and sometimes even with slight growth, depending on which numbers you look at, together with maybe Belgium that has also been relatively stable. For the rest, all markets are down and it goes from the typical southern European countries – France, Italy, Spain, Greece that are a catastrophe. Amazingly enough Spain, I think, as the most radical example, since May 2008 it hasn’t stopped declining, it’s just unbelievable.

‘Then the new player on the block, in a negative way, the Netherlands, which is collapsing in a dramatic way. Fortunately enough, the Netherlands happens to be the market where we are now doing extremely well because of our CO2 values – hybrid, plug-in, so we are growing our volume in a massively declining market in the Netherlands.

‘I would say on average, we see a decline of 5-6% in Europe, year-to-date. But for the last two months, we have seen that it’s stabilising, so we think we have hit the bottom, but I don’t want to be too optimistic. It looks like there are signs of stability and maybe slight growth, so probably more stability overall, but again, very different. I think it’s a compliment for the UK economy that the UK market has one of the biggest markets in Europe and has been the strongest in terms of year over year trends.’

There has also been some growth in the Baltic states, formerly part of the Soviet Union and in Russia itself. How important is this region to Volvo?

‘Russia has a very high priority, not just for Volvo but the whole car industry,’ says Mr Visser. ‘Russia is running at a pace of around 2.5 million cars annually. I think it was in 2008 or 2009 when I was sitting in a forecast meeting for the Russian industry for 2009 and we were forecasting it to be at 3.7 million and I think it ended up being 1.7 million instead, so that’s how volatile this business is.

‘I still believe the Russian industry, whether you count it as Europe or not and we do, is a 4 million car per year industry. It is so unbelievably volatile – I don’t think I’m mistaken in saying that for that size of market it is probably the most volatile market in the world. Oil price drives the car demand price. It will grow, the question is when will it settle down in terms of economic and oil price stability, which nobody can forecast. We would be very wealthy people if we could.’

Elsewhere, the Brazilian market is not as buoyant as it was earlier in the year. ‘It’s probably OK but when the market is up, the increase is falling,’ says Mr Visser. The other BRIC market is India and here, Mr Visser also thinks that the market is a difficult one. ‘For us it’s still a very small market,’ he says, ‘It’s a very difficult market to penetrate because of its size. You almost have to focus on particular urban areas and really build the business there. I think it is probably one of the most difficult. It’s very difficult to predict volume growth. In terms of total industry it’s still very low, a very small market but with huge potential for growth, if you just look at the size of the population and the number of cars sold.’

V40 has helped to boost Volvo’s fleet presence and Mr Visser thinks that fleet is one of the areas where Volvo has the most growth potential. ‘We are well organised from a fleet point of view but we want to be very specific in where we grow. For example, we don’t necessarily want to grow in daily rental, because it doesn’t fit that well with the brand and second it’s not a profitable market. We don’t want to play the game to go for volume and then go in and out of it. It’s a good tool to get people to experience our products, but only if you use it in a proper way.

‘We want to grow our small fleet business considerably. We see Volvo as a good brand for some partners. We have recently signed a deal with Nike – a brand we like to be associated with. We’re looking at Ikea in Sweden too. We’re not just going for volume but looking at the strategic partnership opportunities.’