Renting is gaining ground: 18 percent of new registrations are already under this scheme

New vehicle registrations under renting arrangements continue to gain ground in the Spanish market. In the first quarter of 2018, they rose by 16.02 percent, reaching 71,701 units compared with 61,800 units registered in the first quarter of 2017. The 2017 figure benefited from having more effective business days, as the Easter holidays fell in April that year rather than in March, as happened in 2018.

Spain’s renting sector invested 1,327 million euros in the purchase of new vehicles in the first quarter of 2018, 13.32% more than in the same period of 2017. With these figures, Spanish renting increased its registration volume in the first quarter of 2018 by 16.02 percent, a faster growth rate than that of the Spanish car market as a whole from January to March 2018, which stood at 10.28 percent. Renting is growing faster than the overall market and now accounts for 17.9 percent of it.

“Renting closed the first quarter with a very positive result,” said Agustín García, president of the Asociación Española de Renting de Vehículos (AER), “above its initial forecasts. Registrations recorded double-digit growth, specifically 16.02%, clearly higher than the 10.28% growth of the overall market.”

Why buy a car when you can rent one with all the services you need included?

This concept is the foundation of renting, a financial formula that lets you enjoy a car together with all the services and needs linked to it, covered by a single monthly payment.

More and more consumers turn to this concept to enjoy their mobility. With it, the user does not buy the car but commits to using it and enjoying a range of services, benefits and advantages for a fixed term in exchange for a fixed monthly rental fee. At the end of the term, the car returns to the renting company that acquired it, and the user then decides how to continue enjoying mobility: signing a new renting agreement for a new vehicle, or getting around in some other way, such as buying a car outright or requesting to buy or rent the used vehicle from the operating company.

As can be seen, the idea wins over a growing number of consumers each year, as shown by the number of registrations this type of financial formula has added to the market year after year. Apart from the crisis period from 2008 to 2014, renting has increased its registrations since it began operating in Spain in the mid-1980s, and in most years that increase has exceeded 10 percent annually.

Renault, Volkswagen and Audi were the most requested brands during the first quarter of 2018. As for models, Fiat 500, Renault Kangoo and Seat Leon were the ones that received the highest demand from renting customers.