SIXT reports third consecutive record year, surpassing €4 billion revenue

This represents an increase of 10.5% over the previous year (2023: EUR 3.62 billion). The main growth drivers were the continued expansion in all three regional segments and a strong summer business during the holiday season. In particular, the rental business in the North America segment once again made a substantial contribution to SIXT’s growth with a revenue increase of 22.2%. Despite the persistently weak economy, SIXT also increased its revenue in Germany and in its other European markets by around 6% each. Thanks to fleet planning at a tight level, utilisation was increased, and high customer demand was met with a moderately expanded fleet of 184,300 rental vehicles on average (excluding franchise; 2023: 169,100 vehicles).

The rise of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 10.1% to a historic high of EUR 1.46 billion (2023: EUR 1.33 billion) shows that SIXT was able to achieve this growth efficiently. The result underscores the strength of the SIXT brand, the consistent profitability of the premium strategy and the robustness of the SIXT Group’s rental business, also due to significant investments in the fleet and pricing systems.

While earnings before taxes (EBT) particularly in the first half of 2024 were impacted by a market environment with sharply declining vehicle residual values, SIXT exceeded the EBT level of the same period in the previous year in the second half of 2024, thanks to an effective set of measures implemented early on, demonstrating its adaptability once again.

As a result, SIXT closed the financial year with a significantly positive EBT of EUR 335.2 million. Excluding the increased depreciation resulting from the sharp decline in vehicle residual values in the first half of the year, particularly in North America, the EBT would have been nearly a three-digit million euro amount higher. Furthermore, the significantly higher interest rate environment in 2024 had substantial effects on the approximately 40 million euros increase in interest expense compared to the previous year.

Alexander Sixt, Co-CEO of Sixt SE: “2024 was a challenging year for the car rental industry. Nevertheless, we achieved record revenue for the third year in a row, exceeding the four-billion-euro mark for the first time. Our growth extended across all regional segments. Thanks to early measures, we exceeded the previous year’s result in the second half of the year and ended the year overall with a strong, positive pre-tax result. Our profitability is based on three main pillars: strong growth, our premium strategy and smart fleet management. Targeted, tight fleet planning has ensured a high level of utilisation. We will continue to pursue this successful course in 2025. I would like to express my special thanks to our customers for their trust – and above all to our employees for their extraordinary commitment in the past financial year.”

Konstantin Sixt, Co-CEO of Sixt SE: “The high quality of our products and services has been and remains a key growth driver. We have further expanded our global network and entered new markets, including in the franchise business, by opening numerous new branches and optimising existing locations. Our consistent premium strategy is also reflected in our investments: in 2024, we once more invested heavily in our premium fleet and maintained the value-based premium share of in-fleeted vehicles at the usual high level of around 50%. For 2025, we expect to see another revenue record and growth of 5% to 10%, driven by strong summer business in all regions. To efficiently manage the increasing demand, we continue to invest in our fleet management systems and deliberately keep our fleet planning at a tight level. This ensures high utilisation and supports our target of achieving an EBT margin in the area of 10% with increasing revenue.”

Dr Franz Weinberger, CFO of Sixt SE: “2024 was a year or transition for SIXT, in which we defied the headwinds in an extremely challenging industry environment, particularly one characterised by decreasing vehicle residual values, and where we once again demonstrated the resilience of our business model. Overall, SIXT delivered a strong, positive result in 2024. Whilst the depreciation of the vehicle fleet due to significant residual value losses still had a negative impact on earnings, particularly in the first half of 2024, moving forward we expect the significantly improved purchasing conditions to provide a strong tailwind for our earnings from summer 2025 at the latest.”

In view of the solid business performance in 2024, the Management Board plans to propose a dividend of EUR 2.70 per ordinary share and EUR 2.72 per preference share for the past financial year at the company’s upcoming Annual General Meeting, subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board. The resulting payout ratio of 52.1 % is above the historical payout ratio, which averaged 47.5 % over the last 10 years.