In the middle of the global pandemic, the car rental company Sixt recently reported a significant increase in sales. In the first nine months in the United States alone, the plus was eleven percent compared to the same period in the pre-Corona year 2019. With the takeover of ten stations, the landlord has expanded its US network to 94 locations. Sixt is now going one step further in international business and expanding in Australia.
Sixt Down Under is opening 160 stations with a fleet of 16,000 vehicles in one fell swoop, as the group announced on Thursday. This is made possible by a cooperation with the largest Australian automobile club, the National Roads & Motorists’ Association (NRMA), which is also one of Australia’s leading car rental companies. Sixt takes over the stations in the franchise process. So far, the 160 rental stations have operated under the name of the previous NRMA franchise partner Thrifty. In future, the stations will appear in the Sixt color orange instead of Thrifty blue.
“The strategic partnership with NRMA creates the perfect basis for Sixt to fully exploit the great market potential in Australia,” says Co-CEO Konstantin Sixt. According to the company, this is one of the company’s largest franchise partnerships, based in Pullach near Munich. Sixt has been represented in Australia with smaller cooperations since 2005, these are now to be dissolved.
With this step, NRMA intends to electrify half of the fleet on the entire continent within the next five years in order to achieve the Australian net zero emissions target. At the start of Sixt, 65 electric vehicles will initially be in use – with a total of 16,000 cars and trucks, this is probably a symbolic sign.
The cooperation gives Sixt a market share of 13 percent on the fifth continent. The market leaders are the car rental companies Hertz and Avis, Sixt claims to be in third place. Sixt benefits from NRMA, the largest automobile club in Australia with around 2.7 million members. According to Sixt, the Australian car rental market has a volume of more than one billion euros. Since November 2020 Sixt has also been active as a partner in New Zealand with the Giltrap Group dealer group, currently with five stations.
Despite the pandemic, Sixt has just presented the best quarter in the company’s history – with pre-tax earnings of 253 million euros and sales of 795 million euros. The forecast for the year envisages record pre-tax earnings of EUR 390 to 450 million. The Sixt share was around three percent in the red.