Global Fleet snapshot: LatAm auto leasing alliances

Developing alliances in the automobile fleet management industry is one way to increase your leasing footprint in Latin America.

Although expanding your company's coverage area could be done by opening a unit in every major country in the region, this requires local market knowhow, legal expertise, and business networking which could be acquired more quickly through a local partner.

Currently, the largest collaboration of this kind in Latin America is the Element-Arval alliance which manages a total of 71,204 vehicles, according to poll results compiled by Global Fleet in November.

It is lead by the Mexico unit of Element Fleet Management which supervises 30,000 vehicles in the country and fleet leasing company Arval which manages 30,904 vehicles in South America, being 21,230 in Brazil and 7,000 in Chile.

The alliance also consists of Argentina-based vehicle fleet management company RDA Renting and Colombia-based car leasing company Mareauto which is also an Avis licensee. RDA manages 5,700 vehicles, of which 5,400 are in Argentina and 300 in Uruguay, and Mareauto manages 4,600, being 1,800 in Colombia and 1,700 in Ecuador.

The second largest Latin American alliance of this kind calls for managing a total of 55,855 vehicles. ALD Automotive leads the group with 50,600 vehicles in its portfolio, being 24,000 in Brazil, 24,000 in Mexico, 2,000 in Chile, 500 (Peru), and 100 (Colombia).

To jointly cover other countries, it has teamed up with Guatamala-based Arrend Leasing which manages 4,775 automobiles and Argentina based AutoCorp which manages 500 cars, according to the Global Fleet poll.

While all of AutoCorp's vehicles are in Argentina, Arrend Leasing's portfolio consists of 4,100 in Guatamala, 250 in Nicaragua, 200 (El Salvador), 150 (Honduras), 30 (Costa Rica), and 25 (Panama).

Other major players

The poll highlighted a few other large players. They are Localiza Fleet Solutions which manages 49,046 cars (45,000 Brazil; 3,214 Colombia; 832 Argentina), Locamerica which manages 45,000 vehicles (all Brazil), and Volkswagen Financial Services with 27,831 vehicles (167 Brazil; 27,664 Mexico).

Meanwhile, according to a Global Fleet survey taken in June, RCI manages 32,114 cars, Ariza 31,404 and Leaseplan 31,040. While RCI's fleet encompasses 31,892 vehicles in Brazil and 222 in Argentina, all of Ariza's vehicles are in Mexico and the Leasplan portfolio includes 10,203 in Brazil and 20,837 in Mexico.

Finally, according to market estimates, Unidas is estimated to have a fleet of 30,000 in Brazil, while four fleets are seen in Chile, being Hertz (13,000), Europcar (10,500), Salfa (7,000), and Gama (3,000).

This is only our first step toward identifying leasing partners in Latin America. While the aforementioned fleets sum up to 406,994 vehicles, we estimate that approximately 600,000 fleet vehicles are spread throughout the region.