A REPORT on the state of the European fleet market over the past year has highlighted that business buyers generally buy larger cars than private buyers.

More than 40% of the cars sold for private use are small cars, ranging from small city cars to superminis. Business buyers, on the other hand, are mostly after cars in the lower-medium sector, such as Volkswagen Golf, Renault Megane or Opel Astra.

Lower-medium cars also account for the largest share of the European car rental pool, which absorbed 12% of all those cars sold in Europe’s seven largest car markets.

The findings are part of Datamonitor’s European Fleet Sales Database, elements of which were produced in last week’s Fleet News Europe.