Automotive Business Magazine – Q2 2026 – Digital edition - Magazine - Page 74
OPI N I O N
LEASING
The leasing
driving cross-
2
026 is not only a growth year
for us as a business, but a
yeah of structural reset for the
market. The fleet and leasing
channels are now becoming
central to new car volumes,
competition is accelerating,
particularly with new entrants
like the Chinese brands.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are moving into a
mass market use phase, and they are
balancing out the used prices on them.
The winners in the market will be
the businesses that combine data,
operational speed, and most importantly,
customer trust.
Supply and demand
New car registrations will go up in
2026, and within that we see leasing
representing more than 20% of new
registrations. It is no longer a niche
channel. It's one of the main engines
that drives the new car market.
One of the reasons for this shift is that
retail demand is fragile. That's pushing
tactical registrations that tend to rely on
a daily rental leasing model, or – more
and more – they’re coming to us leasing
brokers.
Chery Group, for example, recently said
that they are not relying on daily rental –
they see leasing brokers as the key outlet
to hit their targets. The new entrants
just admit it and say it how it is, but the
truth is other OEMs are also relying on
businesses like ours to hit their targets.
It’s about that payment-led buying
behaviour. Consumers are shopping by
monthly payment, not based on brand
loyalty. That fundamentally changes how
we position our offers. Value perception
matters more than brand heritage, and
that value might be the technology in the
car, or the range on an EV or PHEV, for
example.
The right broker can match supply to
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AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS
Q2 2026
payment expectation. As a business, we
commit to go and find the customers,
find the funding and put it all together,
knowing where the market sees the car.
There’s also the question of speed. New
entrants are doubling their share rapidly.
That gives people a huge increase
in brand choice, and it dilutes the
concentration of legacy brands. Given
more choice, people are open to newer
options. If you don't know any of them,
you might as well consider all of them.
Leasing brokers are well positioned
to handle this shift, because they’re
finance-led, digitally-focused in terms
of the consumer journey, and faster to
adapt. That’s why so many new brands
are seeing us as a primary route to
market. Meanwhile, as that brand loyalty
gets diluted, and legacy brands ask
where new entrants are getting all their
registrations from, they’re also seeing the
value of leasing brokers. It’s an exciting
time for businesses like ours.
For a dealer group, there's only so
many things you can do when you have
that one brand, whereas we can sit
back and look at what is working with
one brand compared with another, and
understand what tools people are using
to search, or what vehicles people are
trending towards or away from.
Cost and flexibility
There’s a lot of conversation about the
cost-of-living crisis, and how this is
affecting the automotive market. But the
economic environment means even more
people are heavily reliant on their cars,
particularly as public transport prices are
not anywhere near where they should be.
People would love to take trains all the
time, but it often doesn’t add up.
We’re all relying on our vehicles for the
foreseeable, but people are much more
open to reducing – or spreading – their
costs. It's the perfect time for both new
