Leaseurope’s preliminary survey of the European leasing market for 2013 indicates that new leasing business in Europe increased by 1.9% in 2013.

The figures confirm the finding of the federation’s other surveys such as the Leaseurope Index for Q4 2013 and the Business Confidence Survey of December 2013.

The vehicle leasing segment continued to support the overall market and grew by 5.2% compared to 2012. New leasing volumes for equipment, however, were more subdued and fell by 1.0%.

Nevertheless, this represents a slight improvement over performance in 2012, where equipment volumes dropped by just over 2%. Real estate leasing experienced a decline of nearly 13%, with poor performance observed across many European markets.

Leaseurope’s Adviser in Statistics and Economic Affairs, Jurgita Bucyte said: “In spite of the rather positive European picture, there are still some significant divergences in growth at national level. It is, however, encouraging to note that the situation in Southern European leasing markets seem to have stabilised (Spain, Portugal), with some of the larger mature markets, especially the UK, being the key drivers behind overall growth.”

She added: “All in all, we can see that the European leasing market is on the rise, notably in some of the more vulnerable economies, where leasing volumes show signs of recovery and are rebounding from the low levels of past years.

“In comparison to the results of our survey on European leasing activities in the first half of 2013, the preliminary annual figures show that there was a considerable improvement in new volumes within the second half of the year, particularly with respect to equipment leasing (which decreased by 7.1% in H1 2013 compared to H1 2012). Given the growth of European investment projected for 20143, in particular investment in equipment, the outlook this year seems quite positive for our industry.”