The car rental industry is a multi-billion dollar sector of the US economy. THE UNITED STATES segment of the averages about $18.5 billion in revenue a year. Today, there are approximately 1.9 million rental vehicles that service the united states segment of the market. In addition, there are various rental agencies besides the industry leaders that subdivide the total revenue, namely Dollar Thrifty, Budget and Vanguard. Unlike other mature service industries, the rental car industry is highly consolidated which naturally puts potential newbies at a cost-disadvantage since they face high input costs with minimal possibility of economies of scale. Moreover, the majority of the profit is generated by way of a few firms including Enterprise, Hertz and Avis. For the fiscal year of 2004, Enterprise generated $7.4 billion in total revenue. Hertz came in second position with about $5.2 billion and Avis with $2.97 in revenue.
Level of Integration
The rental car industry faces a totally different environment than it did five years ago. In miami luxury car rentals with Business Travel News, vehicles are being rented until they will have accumulated 20,000 to 30,000 miles until they’re relegated to the car or truck industry whereas the turn-around mileage was 12,000 to 15,000 miles five years back. Due to slow industry growth and narrow profit percentage, there is absolutely no imminent threat to backward integration within the industry. In fact, on the list of industry players only Hertz is vertically integrated through Ford.
Scope of Competition
There are several factors that shape the competitive landscape of the automobile rental industry. Competition originates from two main sources through the entire chain. On the vacation consumer?s end of the spectrum, competition is fierce not only because the market is saturated and well guarded by industry leader Enterprise, but competitors operate at a price disadvantage alongside smaller market shares since Enterprise has established a network of dealers over 90 percent the leisure segment. On the organization segment, alternatively, competition is quite strong at the airports since that segment is under tight supervision by Hertz. As the industry underwent a massive economic downfall in recent years, it has upgraded the scale of competition within a lot of the companies that survived. Competitively speaking, the rental car industry is a war-zone because so many rental agencies including Enterprise, Hertz and Avis among the major players engage in a battle of the fittest.
Growth
In the last five years, most firms have already been working towards enhancing their fleet sizes and increasing the level of profitability. Enterprise the company with the largest fleet in the US has added 75,000 vehicles to its fleet since 2002 which help increase its amount of facilities to 170 at the airports. Hertz, on the other hand, has added 25,000 vehicles and broadened its international presence in 150 counties as opposed to 140 in 2002. In addition, Avis has increased its fleet from 210,000 in 2002 to 220,000 despite recent economic adversities. Over the years following the economic depression, although most companies through the entire industry were struggling, Enterprise among the industry leaders had been growing steadily. For example, annual sales reached $6.3 in 2001, $6.5 in 2002, $6.9 in 2003 and $7.4 billion in 2004 which translated right into a growth rate of 7.2 percent a year for the past four years. Since 2002, the industry has began to regain its footing in the sector as overall sales grew from $17.9 billion to $18.2 billion in 2003. In accordance with industry analysts, the higher days of the rental car industry have yet ahead. Over the course of the next several years, the industry is expected to experience accelerated growth valued at $20.89 billion every year following 2008 “which equates to a CAGR of 2.7 % [increase] in the 2003-2008 period.?
Distribution
Over the past few years the rental car industry has made a great deal of progress to facilitate it distribution processes. Today, you can find approximately 19,000 rental locations yielding about 1.9 million rental cars in the US. Because of the increasingly abundant amount of car rental locations in america, strategic and tactical approaches are considered to be able to insure proper distribution through the entire industry. Distribution takes place within two interrelated segments. On the corporate market, the cars are distributed to airports and hotel surroundings. On the leisure segment, however, cars are distributed to agency owned facilities which are conveniently located within most major roads and urban centers.