LAST year was a record for True Fleet EU-5, according to a report by Dataforce, a Frankfurt-based provider of fleet market data.

The EU-5 countries – UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – recorded the highest collective volume since 2005, registering a little over 2.8 million cars. All countries finished with positive figures claims the report.

As well as this, the top 17 brands in True Fleets were all able to raise volumes year-on-year.

In December, the French car manufacturers were particularly successful. Renault was in the lead in December with a surplus of +91.5% and achieving its best market share since October 2005. The biggest part of this increase came from the Megane, Clio and Captur models, where all three earned the December number one spot from their respective vehicle segments.

Meanwhile Dacia actually doubled its fleet registrations when compared to December 2015, earning rank number nine and an all-time high market share of 4.7%.

For the YTD the SUV continues to dominate with a share of 29.7% followed by Compact Cars (24.8%) and Small Cars (15.2%).

Here’s a country by country analysis of True Fleet performance according to Dataforce.

Spain

A very strong result in December (+20.2%) pushed the growth rate for the full year 2016 to +15.4%. Putting this into context, the passenger car total market achieved 1,192,418 registered vehicles for 2016 (an increase of 12.0% over 2015 total) so the 235,895 produced by True Fleet not only represents almost 20% of the Spanish Total Market but for the fourth year in a row has grown its market share.

Italy

The Italian True Fleet market had a tremendous 2016. Not only did it achieve its best year and its best December numbers, it registered the highest monthly growth rate of 2016 with a +45.2% rise year on year. Passenger Car Total Market also had a standout 2016 registering 1,864,018 vehicles and delivering a fifth consecutive year of growth.

Brands showing strong growth included MINI +41.1%, Toyota +42.5%, but the largest growth came from Hyundai which delivered +56.4%, thanks to Tucson.

Germany

In Germany there was a new all-time record: with almost 829,000 new passenger car registrations the German True Fleet Market rose by +5.3%.

 France

Another country to achieve an all-time record as well – France. With a count of more than 467,000 new passenger car registrations for the full year 2016 the growth rate amounted to an impressive +9.0%. As the Private Market growth was flat (+0.3%), the Total Market share of both True Fleets and Special Channels (Short Term Rentals, Dealerships/Manufacturers) peaked with 23.2% and 27.3% respectively.

Market leader Renault was able to increase the fleet volume with a double-digit growth of +11.4% followed by Peugeot, Citroen and Volkswagen.

 UK

Overall the UK Total Market finished with 2,692,786 registrations generating year‑on‑year growth of +2.3%. True Fleet for the most part remained positive despite the Brexit vote.

Of the top brands, only BMW, Mercedes, Kia and improved year-on-year. Kia had the largest growth with +39.0% driven strongly by Sportage SUV.