Skip to main content

Nearly 25% of UK millennials ‘favour renting cars’ – new research

Nearly a quarter of UK millennials would forgo buying a car and are likely to subscribe to a car-as-a-service scheme within the next year, according to new research. The study by cloud software subscription service Zuora states UK millennials are ‘key drivers’ for the ‘subscription economy’, with 73% looking to increase subscription use over the next two years. Zuora’s A Nation Subscribed research involved 2,000 consumers and was carried out by YouGov. It shows 77% of 16-24 year olds and 85% of 25-34
October 9, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Nearly a quarter of UK millennials would forgo buying a car and are likely to subscribe to a car-as-a-service scheme within the next year, according to new research.


The study by cloud software subscription service Zuora states UK millennials are ‘key drivers’ for the ‘subscription economy’, with 73% looking to increase subscription use over the next two years.

Zuora’s A Nation Subscribed research involved 2,000 consumers and was carried out by YouGov. It shows 77% of 16-24 year olds and 85% of 25-34 year olds subscribe to at least one product and/or service – such as gym membership or music streaming sites.

Also, around half of both millennial age groups believe subscriptions are the future, with 31% of 16-24-year-olds expressing interest in connected and self-driving cars.    

Nearly half of respondents rank convenience as the main benefit of using subscription services, followed by cost (29%) and ease of use (27%).

John Phillips, Zuora managing director for EMEA, says millennials are adopting subscriptions at a rapid pace and are pushing companies to rethink their business model.

“It’s likely that as the UK evolves to become smarter, fully connected and more efficient, we’ll see a new generation of businesses catering to this trend,” Phillips adds.

Related Content

  • October 22, 2018
    Kapsch TrafficCom: 'The city is not made for cars'
    Traffic can be a really big challenge. When you’re stuck, you’re stuck. Everything comes to a standstill. But Alexander Lewald describes how existing infrastructures can be used more efficiently and how demand can be managed. A few figures to start with: in Los Angeles, the average driver spends 102 hours a year in traffic – that’s more than four days. This figure is 91 hours in Moscow and New York, 74 in London, 69 in Paris, 51 hours in Munich and still 40 hours in Vienna. Traffic is what causes
  • January 25, 2012
    The future of ITS post recession
    ACS, A Xerox Company's Cees de Wijs talks about post-recession recovery and what we might expect to see in the coming years
  • June 20, 2016
    Do buses need subsidies in congestion charging areas
    David Crawford takes a look at the debate surrounding bus subsidies. Subsidies for public transport are a well-known and frequently-used policy tool directed at reducing the high environmental and social costs of peak-period traffic congestion. But at the end of last year the Swedish Centre for Transport Studies published a working paper entitled ‘Should buses still be subsidised in Stockholm?’ This concluded that the subsidy levels currently being applied in Stockholm could be nearly halved by setting bus
  • September 26, 2019
    Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf