Europcar suffered a slide in net profits over the three months of summer, partially blamed on the weakness of sterling.
The result was down by 3.3% year-on-year to €96 million, although net profit for the first nine months of the year came in at a record of almost €100 million.
This came as the number of rental days in the summer quarter rose by 6.5% to 19 million due to strong leisure business in Spain, Italy and Portugal. Third quarter revenue increased by 2.1% to €707 million.
“This performance was supported by a good leisure momentum across all our brands, and an improvement in the business segments compared to the first half of 2016,” the company said.
All countries showed growth except Belgium which was flat following terrorist attacks. Car rental revenue per day was up by 0.8% in the quarter despite the terrorist atrocity in Nice in July.
The Paris-based company said the slight decrease in net profit was “notably linked to the pound sterling currency effect” together with investments in car sharing firms Ubeeqo and Car2Go Europe.
Europcar also bought ride-hailing company Brunel as part of a strategy to become a “key mobility provider” which has seen a series of acquisitions and investments worth €27 million in the first nine months of the year.
The company raised almost €880 million through a listing on the Paris stock exchange in June last year.
Chairman Philippe Germond said: “These solid results confirm the robustness of the group business model and its capacity to deliver sustained profitable growth.
“The strong summer season was totally in line with our expectations, successfully supported by our brand strategy notably in southern Europe and by operational excellence everywhere in the group.
“In addition, we have fully enjoyed the benefit of the reshape of the capital structure following the IPO allowing us to register a record net profit close to 100 million euros for the first nine months.”