The leasing segment has continued in its upward trek this year, and an even more fruitful market appears to be on the horizon.

A quarter of new-vehicle sales in 2013 have been leases, and at this pace, the market would “smash” the best-ever annual lease penetration rate of 22 percent set a year ago, according to Edmunds.com.

The company explained that its data is based on Edmunds’ transactional data, which accounts for all leases through dealerships, including corporate leases.

 “Lease offers have become more important to automakers' and dealers' sales strategies,” noted Edmunds senior analyst Jessica Caldwell.

“Luxury brands have for a long time relied on leasing to maximize their sales volumes,” she added. “Now mainstream brands are riding that wave, drawing buyers with the promise of lower monthly payments through leasing.”

Citing data form Experian Automotive, the latest Guidelines report from NADA Used Car Guide indicates that when looking strictly at consumer lease penetration — meaning consumer-only leases as a proportion of total consumer-only transactions — Volkswagen led the way for mainstream brands.

It had a 32-percent penetration rate through April, despite dipping 2 percentage points from the full-year 2012 figure, the report indicated.

Honda was at 23-percent consumer lease penetration (down 3 percentage points year-over-year), NADA Used Car Guide said, while Chrysler, Ford and Hyundai managed to reach 20-percent penetration thanks to their gains this year.

“As per the norm, the luxury sector average lease penetration rates were much higher than their mainstream counterparts, with the biggest lease players in the luxury market being Jaguar (54 percent), Infiniti (49 percent), and
Mercedes-Benz (46 percent),” NADA Used Car Guide’s Jonathan Banks said in the report.

Going back to the Edmunds data, Swapalease.com pulled some statistics that further supports the company’s findings and indicates that leasing could be even stronger over the next year or two.

When asked in a recent car-shopping survey from Swapalease if they planned on leasing their next vehicle, about 66 percent of the 700 respondents said they were “extremely likely” or “likely” to do so, according to the Cincinnati-based auto lease marketplace.

And 60.7 percent of survey participants are not leasing their current vehicle.

“Leasing will continue to be an attractive option for car shoppers looking for low monthly payments on their next vehicle,” said Scot Hall, executive vice president at Swapalease. “Leasing’s popularity will continue to rise as shorter terms and more flexible lease policies are introduced to consumers.”

Joe Overby can be reached at joverby@autoremarketing.com. Continue the conversation with Auto Remarketing on both LinkedIn and Twitter.