Avis Budget Group reported a first-quarter loss of $113 million on revenue of nearly $2.6 billion, compared with a gain of $312 million a year earlier on similar revenue, according to a filing by the United States Securities and Exchange.
“To accurately describe activity this quarter and beyond, we must divide the impacts of non-recurring fleet gains, increased interest in vehicles and decisions made to right-size our fleet… versus comparisons to a healthy overall revenue environment and our continued earnings potential,” Avis Budget CEO Joe Ferraro said Thursday, May 2, during a first-quarter earnings conference call.
The company sold a record number of vehicles during the quarter “to enable increased utilization and flexibility,” Ferraro added, “and we saw sequential improvement in our (revenue per day) throughout the months of the first quarter, with March ending down 3”. percent, with stronger exit trends, which we believe is a positive sign for future prices. »
First-quarter revenue for the Americas segment was nearly $2 billion, down about 1.1 percent year over year. However, Ferraro said that “our commercial customer retention rate is close to 100 percent, demonstrating the trust and loyalty of our partners in our business.”
Revenue from Europe, the Middle East and Africa increased 4 percent to $382 million, while revenue from Asia and Australasia decreased by 1.1 percent from the previous year, to $176 million.
Overall, Avis Budget reported a 5 percent year-over-year increase in volume, offset by a 5 percent decrease in revenue per day (RPD). Its average rental fleet for the quarter in the Americas was approximately 497,300, up 10% from the first quarter of 2023, while RPD for the region was down 6% to $67.12.
The average international rental fleet was nearly 170,100 vehicles, up 1 percent year-over-year, with an RPD of $53.86, down about 1 percent from the previous year .
