Leaseplan reports strong 2017 results

LeasePlan, a global leader in fleet management and driver mobility, has reported strong full year 2017 results.

Its reported underlying net results of €532m, up 17% year on year after €40m of incremental operating expenses to invest in long term growth.

Its net result of €467m is up 10% on 2016, with an underlying return on equity 16.7%. Meanwhile, it has reported a serviced fleet growth of 5.5% with 1.7 million cars on the road.

In terms of strategic highlights, it has a clear focus on two large and growing markets in Europe: Car-as-a-Service’ (CaaS) for new cars, a growing €68bn market, and the high-quality three to four-year-old used car market, a growing €65bn market.

It is also launching LeasePlan Digital to transform the company from an analogue business into a fully digitally-enabled business, delivering digital services at digital cost levels, leveraging the latest digital intelligence technologies, and has underlined its commitment to lead the transition from internal combustion engines to alternative powertrain fleets, targeting net zero emissions from LeasePlan’s fleet by 2030

Tex Gunning, LeasePlan CEO, said, ‘I am delighted to announce yet another excellent set of results for LeasePlan in 2017. We have more cars on the road than ever before, and at the same time, our underlying net result and return on equity continued to increase significantly. These results underline the strong and resilient nature of our business as well as the ongoing positive impact of our ‘The Power of One LeasePlan’ operational excellence initiative, which was successfully launched in 2017.

‘Looking ahead, we can achieve so much more. There is a clear megatrend from ownership to usership and subscription models taking place in both the new and high-quality used car markets. Increasingly, our customers – whether they are corporate, SMEs or private individuals – would prefer a ‘Car-as-a-Service’ with no strings attached in terms of car type or duration. They just want ‘any car, anytime, anywhere

‘LeasePlan will lead this trend. With 1.7 million cars on the road in 32 countries, we are already a global leader in providing our customers with Car-as-a-Service for new cars – a business we will continue to invest in. We are also in a unique position to lead the growing €65 billion Car-as-a-Service market for high-quality 3-4-year-old cars thanks to the introduction of our new CarNext.com business. CarNext.com is a disruptive B2C and B2B digital marketplace that enables customers to buy, lease and subscribe to high-quality used cars in Europe.

‘Our leadership position across these two markets, as well as our continuing focus on operational excellence and cost control across the company, will be further enhanced by our new LeasePlan Digital programme. The objective of LeasePlan Digital is simple: to deliver best-in-class digital services to all our customers in all areas of our business at digital cost levels, leveraging the latest digital technologies. Ultimately, this is how we provide our customers with ‘any car, anytime, anywhere’. This is what’s next for LeasePlan.’