TORONTO -

Canada’s 2011 leasing rates for mainstream brands are expected to see a double-digit year-over-year spike, with gains for luxury brands skyrocketing even higher, according to ALG.

What’s more, in light of its current residual projection for Canada, the firm believes several automakers will benefit nicely from the leasing uptick, as these brands and their dealers will be able to roll out “highly competitive” lease offers.

ALG also ranked Canada’s luxury and mainstream brands for the strength in their respective residual values and showed that Japanese and European brands dominated the lists.

Topping the luxury list was Infiniti, followed by Acura, Porsche, BMW and Audi, respectively. Scion led the way for mainstream brands, with Mini at No. 2, Subaru in third, Honda at No. 4 and Toyota commanding fifth.

Breaking the leasing gains down further, mainstream brands are expected to see a 26-percent year-over-year gain as compared to other vehicle financing methods, with luxury brands climbing 43 percent.

“The leasing market is beginning to move upwards,” said Geoff Helby, the Canadian regional director for ALG. “The widespread gains in leasing we foresee offer an excellent avenue for dealers to move inventory and for customers to put themselves into a new vehicle at a competitive price.”

Helby added: “The combination of low used-car supply, a strengthening economy and improving new-vehicle inventories will not only contribute to higher new vehicle sales, but will also create a positive environment for leasing over the next few years.

“In addition, the creation of GM Financial earlier this year, which restored leasing on all Chevrolet and GMC models and Mazda’s introduction of a new competitive leasing program will help to further stimulate the vehicle leasing marketplace,” he continued.

The luxury brands likely to climb the most in terms of leasing are Porsche and Volvo, thanks to their respective residual value gains (Porsche up 5.5 percent, Volvo up 4 percent). On the mainstream side, the strongest improvers for lease penetration will likely be Mitsubishi and Chrysler, with their residuals up 4.6 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

Canadian Residual Outlook

Moving along, ALG also offered its projections for overall residuals in Canada. Because the wage outlook through 2015 is rather healthy, the firm adjusted 48-month residuals by approximately 0.5 percentage points of MSRP.

“ALG foresees sustained growth based on the positive outlook for the overall economy as wages and the employment rate improve,” the firm explained. “In turn, improved wages tend to increase consumer spending, and the amount of disposable income available for purchases on big ticket items, such as automobiles.”

ALG stressed, though, that the respective buyers in different segments tend to have differing disposable income levels. The firm gave the example of luxury segment buyers versus entry-market buyers.

An entry-market buyer would typically be more “sensitive” to wage changes and likely would depend more on disposable income than would a luxury buyer, ALG explained.

“Hence, ALG has implemented a ~0.5-percentage point of MSRP impact on 48-month residual values (aside from other macroeconomic and microeconomic strategy factors) at the industry level based on the positive forecasted outlook for wages from 2011 to 2015,” it noted.