The figures show that Italy and Spain were able to continue their recovery, with both achieving their highest January registrations in True Fleets since 2008. For France and Germany it was even the best January results since Dataforce started to analyse their fleet markets.

In France, after a very strong finish in November and December 2015 with growth rates beyond 20%, the upwards trend was slightly reduced in January but was still present. With +9.2% a double-digit growth rate was missed by only 232 registrations. The private market was flat in January with a marginal surplus of 0.2% over January 2015.

The first four brands within true fleets stayed unchanged with Peugeot and Renault in the lead (both achieving +8.8%), Citroen (+6.7%) and Volkswagen (+3.4%). Due to very positive results for 1 Series, X1 and Active Tourer BMW was able to raise its registrations by 43.4%, climbing from rank number eight into fifth position as a result. The top 10 were completed by Audi, Nissan, Ford, Toyota and Mercedes. Fiat was close to entering this group due to a significant growth of 62.2% in which the 500X played a key role.

Dataforce also reported a solid start for the German true fleet market, up +5.8% over January last year. The most impressive growth rates within the top 10 were achieved by Ford in fifth position with +33.3%, Opel (6th, +25.2%) and especially Nissan, jumping from 17th position to rank number 10 with an increase of 100.7%.

Ford reached its best market share since September 2009. Beside Focus and Mondeo the new generation MPV Galaxy and S-Max performed very strong. In addition, there were almost 100 new fleet registrations for a rather untypical company car, the Ford Mustang.

At Opel the new Astra is accelerating. There was no other model in the German fleet market with a higher increase of registrations in January. And the Opel Karl occupied the fifth position in the mini car segment behind Volkswagen up!, Toyota Aygo, Fiat 500 and Seat Mii.

Outside the top 10 there was another noteworthy performance with Land Rover (rank number 16) achieving its best market share ever in Germany.

In Italy, a surplus of 12.7% and the highest January value since 2008 raised hope for a successful year. Fiat is dominating its home ground. The Italian brand was able to extend its market share to 22.2% (January 2015: 18.0%) with a 39.2% increase of registrations. Behind Fiat and Volkswagen in second position was a lot of movement within the top brands. Mercedes and Ford pushed their registrations by 24.1% and 28.0% respectively. But the most impressive growth could be reported for Toyota (in ninth place) with an increase of 154.0%.

Within Toyota the Yaris was outstanding and led the small car segment, followed by Renault Clio, Ford Fiesta, Opel Corsa and Volkswagen Polo.

Spain saw a promising start of the year for the true fleet market with an increase of 18.0% compared to January 2015. The top 5 brands (Volkswagen, Renault, Mercedes, BMW and Opel) were all able to boost their registrations even by more than 20%. Mercedes performed very well climbing from sixth position to third place with a growth of 29.9% and reaching the highest market share so far. The new GLC was especially marked out and ranked in third position within the SUV/offroad segment behind Nissan Qashqai and Range Rover Evoque.

The top 10 was completed by Audi (+4.7%), Peugeot (achieving exactly the same volume as in January 2015), Ford (+36.5%), Nissan (+35.3%) and Toyota (+7.0%).

In the UK, the true fleet market was flat in January, missing last year’s result by not more than 10 cars! The final quarter of 2015 had already indicated that the apparently endless growth might reach a stop signal. At the same time registrations on private customers grew 8.0%.

But even in a stable market some brands were able to increase their registrations: Mercedes was very strong with +14.1% and climbing on third position behind Ford and Opel/Vauxhall. The A-Class performed exceedingly well with +29.7%. Within the compact car segment the A-Class was only beaten by the Ford Focus.

Behind Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan and Peugeot, rank number eight was occupied by Citroen. The French brand grew by remarkable 51.7% compared to January 2015. The biggest improvements could be seen for C4 Cactus (+147.5%) and C1 (+112.3%).