Demand for financial services

We believe that automotive financial services will continue to be very important for vehicle sales worldwide in 2017. We expect to witness further increasing demand in emerging markets in which market penetration is currently low, such as China. Regions with developed automotive financial services markets will see a continuation of the trend towards enabling mobility at a manageable total cost. Integrated end-to-end solutions, comprising mobility-related service modules such as insurance and innovative packages of services, will become increasingly important. In addition, demand for new mobility services such as carsharing will also grow; we estimate that this trend will continue in the period 2018 to 2021.

In the mid-sized and heavy commercial vehicles category, we expect rising demand for financial services products in emerging markets. There in particular, financing solutions support vehicle sales and are thus an essential component of the sales process. We anticipate increased demand in 2017 in the developed markets for services that reduce the total cost of ownership. This trend is also expected to continue in the period 2018 to 2021.