Luxury car rental company Hype eyes 300% growth by 2024, targets Tier-II cities

In the last few years, the car rental business in India has grown multifold. One of the players in the segment Hype that deals in luxury car rental services aim for 300% growth by 2024. The company has expanded its service to 19 cities across India in the recent few months, as it claims.

Currently, the company caters to cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi NCR, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Mangalore, Mumbai, Madurai, and Pondicherry. In 2017, it started services across seven cities in the country.

Currently, the company is present in Tier-I cities, but as part of its growth strategy, the mobility company is targeting Tier-II cities and plans to launch services in cities such as Lucknow, Kanpur, Ranchi, and Baroda by the end of 2021.

The company claims to have witnessed a surge in demand since August 2020, as revealed by Raghav Belavadi, Founder and CEO of Hype. “With the unlocking we have seen a significant increase in the demand for renting our luxury cars for weekend getaways with families and friends, and expect the trend to continue," he also added.

The company claims that, in the luxury car rental services, people mostly prefer to drive by themselves instead of chauffeur-driven models. Also, as per trend, in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Mercedes-Benz is the most preferred choice, while the BMW comes as the second preferred brand for renting. In North and East India, the demand for Audi is high.

With the cost of ownership for personal vehicles increased multifold in the last couple of years, shared mobility has gained popularity in India. The high cost of vehicles, increasing fuel prices are few reasons that played key roles in the growth of the shared mobility. The rise of international tourism, exposure to luxury services, increase in smartphone penetration, higher disposable incomes, and better road infrastructure are also some of the growth drivers in the luxury mobility rental market.

The car rental service comes as part of the shared mobility ecosystem that provides the customers a sense of ownership without shelling out money for a big-ticket purchase like a luxury car. Also, in many cases, customers prefer renting luxury cars before buying one.