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European Fleet Management Industry to Double in Size

By Ken Briodagh September 25, 2017

The number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in Europe was 6.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new research report from M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight. If it grows at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4 percent, this number is expected to reach 14.1 million by 2021.

Today’s top 14 vendors currently each have more than 100,000 active units in Europe, the report said. TomTom’s subscriber base has grown both organically and by acquisitions during the past years and the company is now the clear market leader on the European market and reached an installed base of about 609,000 units at year-end 2016. Masternaut is still in second place and had achieved an installed base of an estimated 300,000 units at the year-end. Berg Insight ranks Microlise as the third largest player in terms of active installed base with around 210,000 units. Verizon through subsidiaries Fleetmatics and Telogis, ABAX, Teletrac Navman, Bornemann, Transics, Trimble, Gurtam, Targa Telematics, Viasat and OCEAN (Orange) also have more than 100,000 active devices in the field, each.

The HCV manufacturers are now growing their subscriber bases considerably in Europe thanks to standard line fitment of fleet management solutions. Dynafleet by Volvo, FleetBoard by Daimler and Scania Fleet Management are the most successful with active subscriber bases of 99,000 units, 99,000 units and 172,000 units respectively as of the end of the 2016 fiscal year.

“Ten major mergers and acquisitions have taken place in the past twelve months among the vendors of fleet management systems in Europe,” said Johan Fagerberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight.

Trakm8 acquired Roadsense Technology in August 2016. Roadsense is a supplier of fleet telematics and safety products in the UK. In September, Fleetmatics, part of Verizon, acquired the Portugal-based fleet management provider Inosat, thus expanding the presence in Southern Europe and to some extent also South America. The acquisition of Inosat added around 50,000 vehicle subscriptions to Fleetmatics’ existing installed base. Trackunit acquired German-based Dreyer+Timm in September 2016. Later in November, Fleetmatics announced the acquisition of Berlin-based TrackEasy, a fleet management software provider in Germany and Poland, adding approximately 15,000 vehicles to the installed base.

In January 2017, Viasat Group acquired MobileFleet (majority stake adding about 23,000 subscribers). In February, Princip was acquired by W.A.G. Payment Solutions which is among the six largest European providers of payment solutions for road mobility. Viasat Group continued its acquisition spree in May when buying ICOM in Bulgaria. One of the largest transactions this year was when Investcorp acquired ABAX in June 2017. Investcorp paid about $210 million, which translates to about US$ 1,000 per FM subscriber. Isotrak acquired UK Fleet Management technology business VeriLocation in the same month. The latest transaction was done in July when TIMKEN acquired Groeneveld Group that owns Groeneveld ICT Solutions. Mr. Fagerberg anticipates that the market consolidation of the still overcrowded industry will continue in 2017–2018.

To download report brochure for Fleet Management in Europe, click here.


Ken Briodagh is a writer and editor with more than a decade of experience under his belt. He is in love with technology and if he had his druthers would beta test everything from shoe phones to flying cars.

Edited by Ken Briodagh
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