Ogilvie Fleet has seen corporate business in Northern Ireland grow by almost 50% in the past year.

The company appointed Paul Griffiths as head of sales in Northern Ireland 12 months ago with the brief to further expand sales to corporate fleets.

Since then, the number of company cars and vans it has delivered to Northern Ireland public and private sector organisations has increased 48%.

The volume increase excludes Ogilvie Fleet’s business with brokers in the province and vehicles sourced by existing fleet customers located in England, Scotland and Wales on behalf of employees based in Northern Ireland.

Griffiths, who leads a four-strong sales team in Northern Ireland with a fifth person currently being recruited to meet business demand, said: “Business is being won because Ogilvie Fleet’s vehicle leasing offering is clearly different from competitors in the province.”

A raft of new sole and dual supply contracts are behind the growth in core end-user fleet business, while the company recently launched its own car salary sacrifice scheme in Northern Ireland.

Griffiths said: “Although businesses remain cautious, we are also seeing fleet growth among companies that while headquartered in the Republic of Ireland also have operations in Northern Ireland.

“Since I joined Ogilvie Fleet business growth has been faster than I would have predicted.

“We are anticipating further growth of perhaps 10-15% in 2016/17 and that target will be further supported by the recent introduction of our car salary sacrifice solution.”

Ogilvie Fleet has almost 14,000 leased cars and vans on its books and a further 1,600 on fleet management across Britain.