ESTERO, Fla. -

Hertz Global Holdings plans to cut down on its purchases of new model-year 2015 units this year, while also selling more units out of its existing pool of cars.

The company, sharing these plans in a recap of its first quarter operating results released last week, said these steps are part of its effort to reach its targeted supply growth for the year.

Per this plan, Hertz increased the amount of used cars it disposed of during Q1 by 43 percent year-over-year.

Sixty-seven percent were sold through what Hertz defines as “alternative distribution channels.” These are the non-auction sales channels like retail sales and Hertz Dealer Direct, a company spokesperson explained. The other third were sold through auctions.

There was actually a fairly large uptick in the number of units Hertz sold at auction during Q1; however, the growth in the alternative distribution channels was higher, the spokesperson said.  

Rental Risk in April

As he usually does, Manheim chief economist looked at one particular slice of this market — remarketing of rental risk units —  in his latest analysis accompanying the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index report.

The report dives into a few different metrics impacting the overall wholesale market during April.

“Auction prices for rental risk units sold in April fell more than 4 percent on both a mix-adjusted and straight-average basis. That comparison, however, was against last year’s record high,” Webb said in the analysis.

“Auction volumes for rental risk units continued to rise significantly in April. This was reflective of the 11.9-percent increase in new unit sales into rental during the first four months of 2015,” he continued. “Conversion rates were better than average, and average mileage, at more than 46,600 miles, was high.”

Elsewhere, as part of his quarterly presentation last month recapping Q1 trends, Webb offered a breakdown of how rich the vehicle diversity is becoming in the rental-risk unit channel.

In the first quarter of 2013, Manheim determined there were 2,598 unique year, make, model, body configurations remarketed by the wholesale industry. This past quarter, the figure jumped to 3,623.

Furthermore, Webb mentioned the number of unique year, make, model, body configurations it took to reach 50 percent share of the rental-risk volume rose from 57 in Q1 of 2013 to 88 in Q1 of this year.

“It’s a good opportunity for dealers to acquire nice inventory,” Webb said of used-car managers hunting the off-rental lanes. “The shift away from having the rental fleets composed of vehicles that were stripped down in terms of options is something that really ended a long time ago.”  Staff Writer Nick Zulovich contributed to this report.