LEASING brokers are “very important” to Nissan’s business sales because they’re focused on delivering the best customer satisfaction, according to the brand’s fleet director Csaba Vincze (pictured above).
Some 14 months into the role since he was appointed fleet director, Vincze has set up his department ready for the launch of five new models in the next six months.
Speaking exclusively to Broker News, Vincze said Nissan
STELLANTIS brands will have the number of “fast cycle” cars capped in order to raise profitability and improve residual values, according to the group’s UK boss Paul Willcox (pictured above).
Each brand will have sub-18 month cars limited to its market share. This means that Vauxhall, with a share of 5.19% in 2022, will not push more than that amount of its volume into fast cycle channels. For 2022, that would have been the equivalent of 4,300 Vauxhalls.
Talking to Broker News, Willcox said:
NEW car supply is beginning to ease across certain brands and certain model lines, coinciding with a drop in consumer demand, according to Broker News sources.
As indicated by the new car registrations data for the last quarter of 2022, supply for a few brands and specific models has eased to the point where fleet and business channels have begun to increase.
Reports from retailers
The cost of living crisis is impacting on consumer desire to change cars in 2023 says new report into car buying habits
There is a clear divide between individual models. There are some that are in demand, with long waiting times, and those that are freely available. This indicates it’s more a popularity contest than a production problem and that it’s not a brand issue but a model issue.
OF ALL the new car sales trends of 2022, perhaps the most significant is that brand is less important than product.
Those car makers with good individual products (in good supply) have
KIA will end up in the number two slot in fleet sales at the end of 2022, having looked as if it was going to be top for some considerable time.
An unlikely position for the Korean car maker in normal times, but not when car supply for most OEMs was stymied, and Kia found itself in a position where there was plenty of Kia product.
It’s a position which John Hargreaves, Kia’s head of fleet and remarketing, acknowledges is usually improbable but something he’ll take for now.
The Tesla Model Y was the leading model searched for as businesses looked for EVs to lease during Q3 said Leasing.com
DELVE into the new car registration data and talk to industry sources and you’d be forgiven for thinking that in some areas pre-pandemic behaviour was back in the form of cars being pushed into the market through fleet and broker channels.
While the SMMT continues to push a positive ‘growth is coming’ message, industry sources are far more cautious.
Headline figures reveal November 2022 new car registrations were up more than 20% on the same month last year, however economic pressures are beginning to show their presence in the new car market.