Arval reports that its fleet orders in the UK grew by 15% in what it says was a flat market during the pandemic-affected 2021.

Lakshmi Moorthy, Arval UK managing director called it a “strong year for Arval UK” as the company consolidated its position as the third largest leasing company in the UK, despite the pandemic and the shortage of new vehicles.

Moorthy added: “As a leader in sustainable mobility, we continued to support our clients in their electrification journey in the run up to the UK’s road transport decarbonisation agenda for 2030, while also winning accolades for our focus on employee wellbeing.” Moorthy said that nearly half of the new orders (47%) were for electrified vehicles.

The leasing and mobility company posted a similar uplift in vehicle orders (15%) on a global basis as it grew its fleet to1,469,753 leased vehicles.

As well as its core operational leasing offering to corporate fleets, the company says it made advancements in its mobility provision under the Arval Beyond strategy for greater sustainability.

Internationally, Arval says that the number of bike-leasing contracts grew by 54%, the number of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) users increased by a factor of 10, the number of rented months with Arval mid-term rental rose by 34%, and 30% of Arval’s new orders were for electrified vehicles.

Commenting on the performance, Arval’s chairman and CEO, Alain van Groenendael, said that “overall 2021 was an amazing year”. He added:

“We developed our new strategic plan before the pandemic, with pioneering and visionary ambitions in terms of energy transition, mobility and partnerships. 2021 was a year of consolidation. We have provided as much support as possible to our clients to help them deal with COVID-19 and, more recently, the vehicle shortage, and have thus reported incredible results for our activity.”

Arval said that it expected 2022 to be a dynamic year for the mobility sector with a state-of-the-art car sharing platform to be launched in Q1 with the mobility start-up Ridecell, along with mobility financing solutions for Jaguar Land Rover.