Four years after venturing into car rental business with the multi-national SIXT brand, Coscharis Mobility Ltd, last week, took stock of its performance so far, declaring that the popular franchise has been a huge success in Nigeria.
Speaking in Lagos at a press briefing to round off a week of annual activities, the General Manager/Chief Executive Officer of Coscharis Mobility Ltd (SIXT Rent a Car Nigeria}, Christian Chigbundu, announced that the franchise has not only surpassed the goals set in 2013, but has been investing in a network expansion that will take its services to more parts of the country.
Chigbundu who was with the visiting Head of Franchise Operation, Sixt Germany, Karsten Jaensch; Executive Director, Coscharis Group, Cosmas Maduka Jr.; and Head of Accounts, SIXT Nigeria, Olaleke Oyeniran, disclosed that SIXT fleet grew beyond the projected 75 units of sundry vehicles at inception, to more than 500 today.
“What we are doing here is also being done in Munich {the headquarters of SIXT}. Once a year, the entire SIXT family gathers to review our performance, how we have impacted on the economy and how we have achieved our aims,” the General Manger remarked, stating that 80 per cent of the vehicles are under lease while 20 per cent are for the rental business.
He stated that next destinations in the company’s expansion project are Calabar and Enugu, which will be joining the operational office in Kano that takes care of the far north, and, of course, the well established locations in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja.
Keen on leveraging on information technology, Sixt Rent a Car Nigeria plans to introduce an app in the first quarter of 2018, to make online transactions quick and efficient. “We have gone beyond satisfying our customers. We now excite them.”
The management team disclosed that the client base consists of about 1500 individual customers and no fewer than 50 corporate organisations, even as it announced that SIXT is the only rental and logistics company with presence at the Lagos airport, as well as the major hotels in city, including Oriental, Radisson-Blu and Eko.
The brand has also been launched in the neighbouring Benin Republic. Announcing this, Chigbundu explained: “We want to establish a regional market. Customers who want to travel to Benin Republic can come to us and we drop them at the border. A Sixt vehicle, in Benin could convey them from there and bring them back.”
He said the company is not in competition with the pick and drop taxi operators, but is rather rendering services designed to suit the customers’ needs, including taking vehicles for days and weeks, as well offering vehicles on self-drive basis (without a SIXT driver).
Chiigbundu, however, lamented the effect of the prevailing economic atmosphere on the business which has thrown up the challenge of meeting the rising costs of procuring brand new vehicles and maintaining the existing fleet.