Leasing and rental services

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Buying a new car is unaffordable for many consumers today. For instance in 2018 approximately 40% of all newly registered vehicles in Germany were financed by leasing.

In fact the percentage of leasing customers in Germany among B2B and B2C clients now accounts for 49% and 51% of the market respectively, with the share of B2C clients leasing vehicles growing strongly by 19.1%2 between 2017 and 2018.

One reason for this shift is that the leasing market, which has traditionally suffered from a lack of comparability, has been transformed by online players. For instance, German B2B specialist Vehiculum offers customers a leasing contract in less than 15 minutes via its online platform. Earlier this year it raised €7m in a funding round led by Runa Capital and said it would use the capital to open its platform, which was previously only available to businesses, to private customers. The company now offers 230 different car models from 23 car manufacturers for private customers.

A strong player in the B2C segment is German company LeasingMarkt which has more than 500,000 customers visiting its website each month.

Fundraisings

The sector has seen a number of fundraisings. For instance Zoomcar, an Indian-based car rental company, raised €21m in a funding led by Ford, while Paul Camper, a sharing platform where users can rent campervans and motorhomes from private individuals, raised €7m in a round led by Norwegian investor Adevinta.

A strong player in the B2C segment is German company LeasingMarkt, which has more than 500,000 customers visiting its website each month and increased its market share last year with the acquisition of start-up Carledo, which has a focus on fleet leasing offerings.

An online leasing platform specialist for B2B clients is Firmen-KFZ which particularly addresses the needs of SMEs. In the UK, Autohorn Fleet Services is a fast-growing player that specialises in fleet management for companies and B2C leasing for private individuals.

Meanwhile French car manufacturer PSA bought TravelCar, a peer-to-peer car rental and parking services company which has more than a million users in over 60 countries. PSA first invested in the company three years ago as part of its drive to invest in new mobility solutions.

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