ith every locality in a big city in India housing a couple of taxi service providers, one can imagine how tough it is for an organised player to survive in the car rental business. Hertz India has proved the skeptics wrong by becoming the leader in the organised car rental market within four years of starting operations here.

Carzonrent (Hertz India), the exclusive licensee of Hertz International, launched its operations in India in September 2001 and currently operates a fleet of over 650 cars. At present, Hertz India runs 25 units for its major clients in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad. Says Rajiv Vij, CEO, Hertz India, "The company is expanding its operations and point of presence to over 32 cities and we will increase the size of the fleet to 5,000 cars in the next three years." The size of the organised car rental industry is pegged at Rs 400 crore. There are about 1.5 lakh cars registered as taxis in India, of which only 2 per cent fall under the the organised sector. In the US, in contrast, the total number of cars on rental is 2 million.... more