Avis Budget Group in the second quarter continued to limit its fleet to “ensure it is kept within demand,” and in doing so sold in the first half of the year a record number of vehicles, AGB CEO Joe Ferraro said on a Tuesday earnings call.
ABG had enacted approximately 70 percent of its anticipated full-year fleet sales by May, Ferraro said, which led to a quarterly vehicle utilization rate of 70.2 percent, in line (0.3 percentage points down) when compared with Q2 2023. But the “de-fleeting” in the first half of the second quarter also resulted in utilization improving each month, with June finishing more than one point better than June 2023, he added.
“We anticipate our third- and fourth-quarter utilization to well surpass the third and fourth quarters of 2023,” Ferraro said.
Although the average rental fleet size for the second quarter was up 2 percent year over year to more than 705,000, the company started July with fleet down over the prior year, Ferraro added.
Regarding corporate business, it “was pretty strong for us [and] has been post-pandemic,” he said. “Part of that commercial demand is usually some leisure activity as people travel to conduct business meetings and then go away on the weekend. So I haven’t seen anything really that would indicate a downturn.”
Avis Budget Q2 Metrics
Avis Budget reported second-quarter revenue of $3 billion, down 2 percent year over year. Net income was $15 million compared with $436 million one year prior. Americas revenue was down 3 percent from Q2 2023 to nearly $2.4 billion. International revenue declined 1 percent to $687 million.
Total second-quarter rental days increased by 2 percent year over year to more than 45 million. Revenue per day declined to $67.69 from $70.65. Americas rental days increased about 1 percent to nearly 33 million. That segment’s RPD declined to $71.67 from $74.23. International rental days increased 5 percent compared with Q2 2023 to nearly 12.1 million. International RPD declined to $56.85 from $60.47.
