The Individual Automobile Lessee

In an effort to define vital characteristics of the ex­panding automobile leasing market, a two-stage question­naire mailing was recently sent to 1,737 lessees. The three page questionnaire included 15 questions directed to the individual car lessee located in the East, in the Middle West - coast-to-coast - and in the areas of the United States in which most car leasing takes place.

The areas under study were: 1) Previous leasing experi­ence; 2) Current leasing; 3) Shopping habits; 4) Company vs. personal leases; 5) Types and model year of leased cars; 6) Business and personal usage and mileage; 7) Type of lease (open/closed end); 8) Length of lease; 9) Future leas­ing intentions and attitudes and demographic charac­teristics. More than 76-percent of the 981 completed re­turns came from lessees of only one car.

Leasing habits and characteristics of the 981 individual car lessees, (the part of our market about which the least is known up to now, even though it accounts for 14- to 17-percent of the total car leasing business), showed that the median number of miles driven per year by these respon­dents was 24,000. More than two-thirds of the 981 respon­dents reported that they pay all or part of their car leasing personally.

Findings show that 44-percent of these people are be­tween the ages of 35 and 49. With 28-percent being be­tween the ages of 25 and 34. The remaining 25-percent are over 50 years of age. Business qualifications show that this audience are mainly professional or managerial persons (50-percent), a smaller amount are sales affiliated (17-per­cent), and the remaining group are either owners or pro­prietors (17-percent).

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Previous leasing experience showed that although 80-per­cent of leased cars replaced a previous car, in 20-percent of the cases studied, the leased car was additional to what the lessee already had. Of these replacements, four out of ten were cars owned by lessees.

Current leasing and shopping habits of these people showed that two-thirds of the respondents said they plan to lease their next car. Only one-fourth do not plan to lease. The remaining are undecided. Of those who plan to lease, 22-percent plan to do so in 1975; 42-percent plan to lease in 1976; and 22-percent were undecided on future leasing plans. Figures show that according to these same group of lessees, 28-percent plan to lease a high-priced standard or luxury car - an additional 32-percent, a standard or inter­mediate - only 10-percent plan to lease a compact or im­ported car. This evidence, will aid fleet owners in determin­ing the fact that the leasing market will continue to lean toward the big car, U.S. market, contrary to recent state­ments made by leading automobile manufacturers.

The people all over the country who regularly lease cars on an individual basis make up the expanding leasing mar­ket, both as individuals and thru their specific companies. These people are catagorized in the big-mileage market, concerned mainly with large, luxury automobiles.

Based on current information from a spokesman for Hertz Corporation, actual sales figures show that leasing to individuals went from approximately 290,000 units in 1964 to 1 million in 1974, an increase of 245-percent. He also said the popularity of auto leasing is expected to continue and that this segment of the industry could possibly cap­ture as much as 40-percent of the auto market by 1980.