IRN JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015
13
ERA/
IRN
RENTALTRACKER
Gainingground?
After a downbeat third
quarter, sentiment picked up
to some extent in the final
threemonths of 2014, but
caution still reigns.
Thesurvey
In total approximately 120 companies in Europe
responded to the ERA/
IRN
RentalTracker survey
for the fourth quarter of 2014. The survey was
carried out at the end of December and start of
January.
Our thanks to all the companies who
participated and to the following organisations
which helped distribute the European survey to
theirmembers and contacts:
■
Assodimi (Italy)
■
ConfalQ (Spain)
■
ConstructionPlant-hireAssociation (CPA) (UK)
■
DanishRental Association
■
DLR (France)
■
TheAssociationof FinnishTechnical Traders
■
HireAssociationEurope (HAE) (UK)
■
NorwegianRental Association
■
RusRental (Russian rental consultant and
trainingorganisation)
■
VerhurendNederland (NetherlandsRental
Association)
The RentalTracker for Europe is a joint venture
between
IRN
magazine and the European Rental
Association (ERA). If you have suggestions about
how the survey could be improved, then please
contact the ERA on
or Helen
Wright,
IRN
Editor, at
year was 32.5%; demonstrating that fourth quarter
sentiment is still far off levels that we have seen in
the recent past.
Continuing the trend of previous quarters, the
UK consistently topped our charts or came a close
second on every survey question. This reflects the
generally better GDP growth performance of the
UK economy and an associated upturn in building
activity – particularly housing – that is having a
positive impact on the rentalmarket.
It is worth making the point that we get more
responses from the UK than any other country,
so positive results in the UK skew the results for
the whole of Europe. However, the proportion of
UK results in the total survey has not changed
significantly (UK respondents tend to represent
between 10% and 15% of overall survey responses),
so we are recording broadly like-for-like changes
betweenquarters.
The UK was joined by Nordic countries and
Germany in fairly consistentlybeating the European
average formost surveyquestions,while –generally
speaking – respondents from France, the Benelux,
multinational companies and Italy tended to
register below the European average for the fourth
quarter survey.
Q4Growth
Overall, 40% of all respondents reported year-on-
year growth in the fourthquarter, compared to 39%
in the third quarter. The UK came top with 77%, up
from 73% in the third quarter, followed by Germany
and the Benelux. The biggest faller, however,
was the multinational sector, where just 8% of
Optimism
PERCENTAGEFORECASTING
BUSINESSTOBE ‘BETTER’ OR
‘MUCHBETTER’ 12MONTHSAHEAD
(last quarter results inbrackets)
TABLE 1
UK
82%
(64%)
Nordic
67%
(56%)
Russia
50%
(NA)
Italy
44%
(14%)
Germany
43%
(75%)
All Europe
43%
(45%)
Spain
40%
(33%)
Benelux
37%
(56%)
Multinationals
34%
(45%)
France
15%
(32%)
Sponsored by:
respondents reported growth, down from 45% in
the third quarter.
In fact, sentiment from the multinational sector
slipped almost across the board compared to the
last survey, with only employment intentions and
utilisation trends showing improvements from the
thirdquarter, albeitmarginal.
Multinationals also remain among the least
optimistic looking ahead a year – only French
companies had fewer respondents forecasting
‘much better’ business conditions 12 months from
now.
French respondents were not only the most
downbeat on conditions in a year’s time, but at
A
s far as current business conditions are
concerned, sentiment at first glance seemed
to have improved in the fourth quarter ERA/
IRN
RentalTracker survey. Indeed, 31.9% of overall
respondents reported improving conditions and
23.5% reported deteriorating conditions, resulting
in a positive balance of +8.4%of respondents.
While this is undoubtedly better than the +1.7%
balance at the end of the third quarter, the last
survey was notably more downbeat than the rest
of the year. This makes any improvement in fourth
quarter sentiment paint perhaps an unrealistically
rosy picture by comparison.
Indeed, thebalanceofopinion forcurrentbusiness
conditions at the end of the second quarter of last
¼
Deteriorating
Same
»
Improving
Balanceof opinion
Q4-14
+8.4%
»
32.0%
44.5%
¼
23.5%
FIGURE 1
Europe: Businessconditionsnow
Q3/
09
Q4/0
9
Q1/10
Q1/11
Q1/12
Q1/1
3
Q1/14
Q3/10
Q3/11
Q
3/12
Q3/13
Q2/10
Q2/11
Q2
/12
Q2/13
Q3/14
Q4/14
Q2/14
Q4/10
Q4/11
Q4
/12
Q4/13
