This week’s fleet news, including Athlon’s implementation of the Sofico system, Volkswagen China subsidiary’s acquisition of a domestic fleet firm and the latest figures on UK fleet from SMMT, FLA and BCA.
Athlon sets up Sofico software
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Athlon Car Lease, the fleet subsidiary of De Lage Landen, has begun using Sofico’s Miles software in its Spanish and Italian divisions ahead of plans to implement the leasing and fleet management system across its European operation.
Netherlands-headquartered Athlon, which operates in nine European countries, has more than 230,000 vehicles under management.
The firm began running the Miles software in Italy and Spain where it operates fleets of between 6,000 and 7,000 vehicles and plans to expand operations in Germany, where it already has a fleet of around 28,000, by the end of this year.
Athlon will then roll-out the system across its other subsidiaries.
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By GlobalDataTijmen Mekel, senior vice president of information technology at Athlon Car Lease, said the company aims to replace many of its current systems in order to standardise processes.
Mekel added that the lessons learned in Spain and Italy would be used to streamline future implementations.
"We will take what we have learned from both implementations and use that knowledge to help implement the system in Germany in 2013. The German market is a little more sophisticated and we will have to pay more attention to workflow, customer reporting and specific local interfaces which will take more time than the other two countries," he said.
VW China subsidiary buys Chinese leasing company
Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS) Chinese subsidiary Volkswagen New Mobility Services Investment has acquired Shanghai Zhenlang Transportation Equipment Leasing with a view to establishing car rental operations in the country.
English-language news web site China Daily reported Peter Tempich, general manager of Volkswagen New Mobility Services, as saying the company aims to set up car rental operations in all of China’s major cities, providing long term rental and leasing products for corporate clients.
It will also continue to provide its established lines in after sales and alternative mobility services such as corporate car sharing and e-mobility.
Volkswagen made its first entry into China in 2004 with the creation of Volkswagen Finance (China), which provides retail and automotive financing.
UK end-of-year statistics positive for fleet
New fleet registrations were up marginally in 2012, the volume of vehicles financed for business users in November climbed on the previous year while the value of ex-lease vehicles at auction reached a record level, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT), the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) and British Car Auctions (BCA).
According to the SMMT, fleet new car registrations for 2012 totalled 1,025,501 units, up by 0.6% on the figure for 2011 and equivalent to a 50.2% share of the total market for new registrations, down by 2.3ppts from 2011. Business new car registrations stood at 89,668 units for the year, down by 9.5% on 2011 and dropping in market share from 5.1% to 4.4%.
In the 12 months to November, according to the FLA, 398,334 new cars were bought on finance by businesses, up by 6% on the previous 12 months. A total of 65,371 used cars were bought on finance by businesses; a rise of 55% on the previous 12 months. For November itself, 30,018 new cars and 4,902 used cars were bought on finance by businesses, a drop of 4% and rise of 69% respectively.
The BCA Pulse Report has also recorded an all-time high for average fleet and lease used values at auction of £8,509 in December 2012, up by 11.1% on December 2011. This beats the previous record, set in October 2012, of £8,376, and, like 2011 and 2010, saw the highest monthly value recorded in December. BCA figures for December also show, year-on-year, the average age of fleet and lease cars at auction was down from 40.38 months in 2011 to 39.52 in 2012; with average mileage also down from 49,816 to 47,024.
By Richard Brown, Grant Collinson and Peter Johnstone
