"Too many rental cars in Iceland"

Iceland has 22% more rental cars now than in 2015. About 21,500 rental cars are registered in Iceland today, but the whole fleet counted 17,500 vehicles at the beginning of 2015.

"There are too many rental cars in Iceland today," according to Steingrímur Birgisson, CEO of Bílaleiga Akureyrar, one of the largest car rental operators in Iceland.

Birgisson’s company has a fleet of about 4,000 rental vehicles, which accounts for almost 19% of all rental cars in Iceland.

“I made the decision to grow our fleet moderately, and I believe that has been the policy of most of the larger car rental companies. Smaller companies are likely growing faster,” Birgisson says.

According to Gunnar Björn Gunnarsson CEO of Procar car rental, the number of rental cars in the country is starting to impact prices. “The rental car market this year is very different from last year, when demand was far greater than supply,” he says.

Avis is also seeing a more competitive market this year, but say that demand is still high. “We have never added more cars, but we went from 2,300 vehicles in 2015 to 2,700 this year, and they are all in operation,” says Hjálmar Pétursson CEO of Avis in Iceland. “Of course this has impacted prices, but this is a competitive market and we look at pricing every day.”