US Car and Truck Rental Revenues to Return to Growth as Consumer, Business Travel Rebounds

Revenue growth expected to return to longer term trend as pandemic travel restrictions are lifted

Nominal revenues generated by the US car and truck rental industry are expected to see annual growth of 11% through 2025 from a depressed base in 2020, according to Car & Truck Rental: United States, a report recently released by Freedonia Focus Reports. Excluding the anomalous year 2020, revenues are projected to increase 2.1% per year from 2019 through 2025. Ongoing increases in disposable personal income levels and consumer willingness to spend on recreation services such as travel and vacation experiences will drive growth, as will the return of travel for business purposes. Car and truck rental services will continue to face competition from ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft, traditional taxi services, and other public transport providers.

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Revenues generated by car rentals are expected to expand 13% per year through 2025 from a depressed base in 2020. Excluding 2020, revenues are projected to increase 1.9% per year from 2019 to 2025. Gains will be driven by increasing disposable personal income as well as the release of pent-up demand for travel following the relaxation of restrictions in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further gains will be restrained by the low quantity of available rental cars – a result of a mass fleet sell-off during the 2020 downturn and the ongoing microchip shortage, leaving rental companies struggling to meet demand. Revenues generated by truck rentals are expected to expand 4.0% per year from 2020 to 2025; excluding 2020, projected increases stand at 3.4% per year over the 2019 to 2025 span. Increasing disposable personal incomes will support purchases of big box and other items requiring delivery by truck, some of which will be fulfilled by rental trucks. Further growth will be limited by a decrease in the number of people expected to move over the forecast period.

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These and other key insights are featured in Car & Truck Rental: United States. This report forecasts to 2021 and 2025 US car and truck rental revenues in nominal US dollars. Total revenue is segmented by source in terms of:

  • airport car rental
  • off-airport car rental
  • truck rental

To illustrate historical trends, total revenue and the various segments are provided in annual series from 2010 to 2020.

Cars and trucks rented with a driver are excluded from the scope of this report, as are vehicles such as buses.

This report includes the results of a proprietary national online consumer survey of US adults (age 18+). This Freedonia Focus Reports National Survey has a sample size of approximately 2,000, screened for response quality, and representative of the US population on the demographic measures of age, gender, geographic region, race/ethnicity, household income, and the presence/absence of children in the household.

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