Sixt AG, one of the leading mobility service providers in Europe and Germany’s largest rental car organisation, has announced another firm quarter of demand in the third quarter of 2009 in spite of the still unstable economic climate.

The Sixt group also recorded a clear financial improvement on comparison to the first two quarters of 2009, with a quarterly profit of EUR 23 million representing a rise of 8.6% on the previous year. The consolidated before tax profit (EBT) was comparable to the EUR 30.1 million recorded in the prior-year quarter.

Sixt has advised that stabilising demand is due in the main to stricter cost management and reduced rental fleets brought about by the effects of the recession.

Third quarter consolidated revenue was down by 11.3% in the year-on-year period, but up by just over 5% on the second quarter and by 13.3% against 2009’s first quarter.

Sixt reasons that the robust statistics show that even in times of economic crisis there is still a need amongst private individuals and corporate organisations for mobility and has forecasted that they will achieve their full-year earnings targets for 2009.

Most significant for the group in terms of recent developments was the decision to reduce the size of the group’s vehicle fleet by around 20%.

In the 9 months to date of 2009 Sixt has added some 96,400 vehicles to its fleet, down from 120,900 in the year prior period. This reduction represented a EUR 2.2 billion savings.