Share Now celebrates 3rd anniversary in Hungary

More than 5 million kilometers were registered in the last year alone, the company notes.

"This demonstrates the strong and accelerating growth rate of the service, even with the drastic impact on the demand of the 2020 restrictions and the change in lifestyle due to the pandemic," says Bence Buday, managing director of Share Now Hungary.

Although the most frequent users of the car-sharing service are typically men aged between 25 and 34, it's becoming increasingly popular with a wider range of users. For example, Share Now has an 80-year-old user as well. 

The average length of journey, which was just 28 minutes when the service launched, now stands at 90 minutes. Meanwhile, Share Now's client base had also grown rapidly, and the 60,000 current customers include almost 3,000 self-employed customers and, small-, medium-, and large enterprises.

"The popularity of carsharing in Hungary continues to grow, so much so that April this year was the company's most successful month ever, both in terms of the number of users and the company's revenue," adds Buday.

Share Now originally launched its service in Hungary with a 63 square kilometer service area (the area where you can start and finish your rental while you can drive all over the country) in 2019  and now it covers more than 100 square kilometers, making it the third carsharing service provider to enter the Budapest market with the most extensive service area in the capital featuring a growing number of extended zones.

In the meantime, the initial fleet of eight models and 220 cars has doubled in size, and now 440 cars and 13 different models are available to customers, including the MINI convertible, uniquely in the Hungarian market.

"We have added more than 50 new cars to the fleet available to our customers in the first half of this year, and by the end of the year we have confirmed orders for another 200 new cars from manufacturers," notes Buday, summing up this year's growth plans, also arguing that carsharing should be integrated even more tightly into the public transport system.

For example, by creating a dedicated parking island where all public and shared mobility providers are available, to make it easier for users to switch between mobility solutions. For this reason, the expert considers it essential to further develop the regulatory environment to support this, in cooperation with the capital.

Stellantis-owned Free2move recently announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Share Now. The Wallis Group, which operates the service in Hungary, is waiting for further developments related to the acquisition and new opportunities it might bring, as the fleet of 440 cars currently available to users in Budapest already includes a large number of Fiat and Peugeot models, according to the press release.