USA are now the largest market for the car rental company

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The car rental company, known for its aggressive advertising campaigns, is currently investing heavily in marketing in the USA – most recently with an elaborate neon sign in New York’s Time Square. Sixt announced that marketing expenses will weigh on earnings in the first quarter of 2023.

Sixt pays special dividend after Corona

Sixt has the money for the expansion. Like its big competitor Europcar, the company has recovered very well after the Corona years. In 2022, group sales increased by around a third to just over three billion euros. At 550 million euros, profit before taxes is at a record level, the return on sales rose to 17.9 percent and is thus well above the planned value of ten percent. Because the dividend was canceled in 2020 and 2021, there is now a special dividend of two euros in addition to the regular payment of 4.13 euros per preferred share.

>> Read also: Sixt switches to electric cars – “Cheaper than comparable cars with combustion engines”

The bulk of the distribution remains with the Sixt family, which controls around 60 percent of the shares. The car rental company from Pullach has been managed by a dual leadership since June 2021. The brothers Konstantin and Alexander Sixt manage on an equal footing, but they have shared the tasks. Alexander Sixt takes care of strategy and organization, Konstantin Sixt takes care of sales, father Erich Sixt sits on the supervisory board.

For the year 2023, the brothers are confident. “The desire to travel has increased significantly,” says Alexander Sixt, the group is aiming for 2023 in the upper range of a result like 2022. Sixt wants to further reduce costs.

The company has used the corona pandemic to further digitize business processes. With the “One App”, more and more customer contacts are made via smartphone. Because the car industry could deliver fewer cars due to the lack of chips, Sixt also reduced the supply and raised prices. However, the lack of new cars seems to be disappearing. There are “very good signs” that the availability of new cars is improving, according to Sixt.

Strategic partnership with BYD

While expansion with combustion engines continues in the USA, Sixt is building an electric fleet in Europe. Sixt announced that by the end of the decade, 70 to 90 percent of the vehicle fleet will be converted to electric drive. All major rental stations are to have fast chargers, and Sixt intends to invest 50 million euros in setting up its own charging network.

100,000

BYD is to deliver electric cars to Sixt.

The electric cars are supplied by the traditional partners BMW, Mercedes and the VW Group. In addition, Sixt signed a contract with the Chinese manufacturer BYD last November. The fast-growing BYD group will deliver around 100,000 electric cars to Sixt by 2028.

For the Chinese, the agreement is the largest deal so far with a European customer and access to the home market of the VW Group. At the beginning of 2021, the Wolfsburg-based company had negotiated a similar partnership with Sixt, including an equity investment, but then decided in March 2022 to buy Sixt’s competitor Europcar.

Car rental companies are important as stable sales channels for car manufacturers: Every year Sixt takes tens of thousands of cars from the big car manufacturers and usually returns them to the industry after six months. The car manufacturers can thus better control their production, but also promote the introduction of new models.

More: Sixt switches to electric cars – “Cheaper than comparable cars with combustion engines”

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