MORE than one million company cars are funded by contract hire, while personal leasing remains a minority product, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association.

In the BVRLA Review 2001, the association has revealed its members have a combined contract hire fleet of 1,131,574 cars. By comparison, although the number of personal leases has doubled, this form of funding still only accounts for 38,638 cars. Finance lease funds 27,052 cars provided by BVRLA members, while fleet managed vehicles account for 351,479 cars, down from 517,688 last year.

The figures are for 2000 and are a sign of continuing confidence in the benefits of contract hire, the BVRLA claims. The review said: 'The rate of growth in the contract hire fleet has continued its long-term increase.

'The 2000 total, including cars vans and lorries, of 1,618,516 remains ahead of the growth in UK car registrations for the same year.'

However, revenue figures showed the damaging effect of uncertainty over new car prices and falling residual values. Overall revenue for long-term contract hire for cars and LCVs fell from £6.61 billion to £5.92 billion, a fall of 11.1%.

Fact file
Contract hire car fleet size
1995 572,501
1996 622,436
1997 755,706
1998 818,547
1999 994,842
2000 1,131,574
Source: BVRLA

The BVRLA Review 2001 has exposed the crippling damage that thieves can cause to rental and leasing businesses. The cost of damage and stolen vehicles was nearly £5 million during 2000.

However, the number of vehicles stolen reached the lowest on record, although it still numbered 1,119.

Of those, 16.3% were taken from rental or leasing company premises, 21.6% were stolen from the customer and 19.9% were hire using false identification.

The report said: 'Although the reduction in thefts is encouraging, the BVRLA will continue to work to reduce this figure further.'

During 2000, the BVRLA had 793 full members, 80 associate members and represents fleets running 2.04 million vehicles.