Growth Opportunities in the UAE Light Vehicle Leasing and Rental Market

Vehicle leasing addresses several challenges associated with an organization's mobility needs, such as vehicle funding, fleet maintenance, and residual risk. Businesses need to focus on their core products and services, leading to outsourcing of support activities related to mobility, ranging from fleet purchasing to remarketing. Unless an expert team is on the job, each segment in the value chain can present problems, such as cost spikes, utilization mismatches, irregularities in fleet maintenance, and dips in residual value. Leasing the fleet enables hassle-free on-demand mobility, streamlines the residual value, and provides access to fleet after-service facilities and several other benefits. The increasing demand for these services and facilities has driven the growth of the leasing market, given it a structure, and regulated the ecosystem. This study examines the leasing market across the passenger vehicle (PV) and the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segments in the UAE. It provides sales/parc data for the total market, the fleet, and the company car (true fleet) segments in the country. It discusses the company car segment in detail and focuses on the development and growth potential of financial leasing, operational leasing, and outright purchase and rental segments in the UAE. The analysis takes into account historical data, current market conditions, and insights and opinions collected from market participants to provide a 5-year outlook on growth opportunities. In addition to market data for new registrations and portfolios (PV and LCV), the study offers competitor data for the leading leasing and rental service providers in the UAE. Competitor data is available for operational leasing and rental segments for 2021 (base year). The industry’s evolution depends on the transformational trends linked to the macroeconomic and geopolitical situation of the region and the emerging business models that reflect innovation in mobility solutions, such as rentals, car sharing, integrated mobility, and the used car market growth. The study considers all these factors and provides a 360-degree understanding of the evolutionary trends of the light vehicle leasing and rental market in the UAE. Author: Subhashree Ramarathnam