NISSAN has withdrawn from fast-cycle daily rental business to improve the residual values of its new vehicles. The manufacturer wants to ensure competitive wholelife costs throughout its range as a base for launching a completely new model line-up over 30 months.

Short cycle business has traditionally accounted for about 13% of Nissan's registrations, and last year for about 29% of its fleet sales. The majority of these cars were supplied on buy-back arrangements, but Nissan feels that even this control over remarketing has not been enough to avoid distressing residual values.

Simon Carr, Nissan's fleet sales director, said the company would be 'working towards greater penetration of sales in other areas of the fleet market, including local business users and core fleets', to make up the lost daily rental volumes. 'This shift in focus has been made possible by the imminent introduction of some exciting new products, including the new Almera,' he said. 'We are very confident that new models we are launching in 2000 will return much higher residual values, and that will be good news for fleet operators who have an eye on the supply and demand of cars for the used market.'