The computer equipment rental market - France

The hardware rental market covers all types of hardwares, from laptops and desktops to printers, scanners and installation. A company pays an external service provider to supply all the hardware it needs for a specified period, often between 18 and 60 months. Paradoxically, the financial crisis has benefited hardware rental companies. The tightening of bank credit has prompted companies to opt for alternative financing solutions. Apart from this phenomenon, IT equipment leasing has become a popular choice of operational management method. Leasing offers companies the advantage of being able to renew their IT equipment on an ongoing basis. As Guillaume Martin explained in our podcast, which you can find here: the IT equipment rental market, an employee loses an average of 109 working hours due to IT problems. This is a concentrated sector dominated by a dozen players, half of which are subsidiaries of banking groups. The continuing fall in the price of IT hardware has forced operators to reduce their rates on pure rental contracts. New services (maintenance, consulting, facilities management) are emerging, largely offsetting this shortfall. The sector has been undergoing restructuring in recent years. In 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the rental market contracted somewhat by -1.02% compared to 2019.however, the outlook for the equipment rental market is quite satisfactory, as more and more companies are opting for a usage-based approach rather than a purchase-based one. The INSEE nomenclature that best corresponds to this activity is 7733Z "Rental and leasing of office machinery and computer equipment".