"Automotive inSIGHTS 2/2010" (PDF, 3784 KB - Roland Berger

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INTERVIEW – ERICH SIXT
How do you rate the growth opportunities for mobility
programs in markets outside Western Europe and
North America?
Sixt: Western Europe will remain our core market for the
foreseeable future. We had high expectations for expanding
into Eastern Europe, but these have been only partially
fulfilled. Car rental has not yet taken hold in all areas
in that region. As for the world's biggest growth market,
China, it will take many years before a mobility fleet can
be profitably built up. Chinese customers insist on owning
the cars.
In your view, what will the market for mobility services
look like ten years from today? Will we have the onestop
mobility provider that has long been discussed?
Sixt: No one can predict the future, and ten years is a
very long time in view of the present pace of technological
progress. The supply of mobility services will keep on
expanding, but I don't see a revolutionary change here.
Obviously, new services will be offered and ideas like
car-sharing will spread.
However, we won't see the close combination of all different
kinds of mobility offerings within one provider model.
For this, the different modes of transport (car, train and
plane) would have to share competitive know-how such
as customer data, for example. It's a nice vision, but the
economic competition between them is simply too strong.