New Report from Fleetmatics Finds SMB Fleet Activity a Strong Indicator of Economic Health

DUBLIN and BOSTON, April 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Fleetmatics Group PLC (NYSE: FLTX), a leading global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), today issued the second edition of its FleetBeat Report, an in-depth analysis of tens of billions of data points extracted from thousands of commercial fleets managed using the company's SaaS platform over a span of four years. The data included in this latest report reveals that performance of small businesses in the services industry directly reflects the health of the economy. This is the first and most comprehensive report to compare telematics data in the service industry with retail sales trends over time.

A full copy of Fleetmatics' second edition FleetBeat report can be downloaded here.

As outlined in the report, co-authored by Dr. Stephen Fuller, university professor and director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University, the data extracted from Fleetmatics fleet management data cloud suggests that performance of small business services companies can be a highly credible indicator of national and regional economic health, even under changing conditions. The report also looks at small business services performance and retail sales in four Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), and concludes that geographic features can significantly define regional small business activity profiles.

"It has long been said that retail sales trends are often impacted by the health of small business," said Jim Travers, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fleetmatics. "Fleetmatics is uniquely positioned to analyze small business services activity given we have one of the largest fleet management data clouds in the world. Also, our customers are typically in the earlier phases of consumer consumption, such as distribution of goods and home deliveries. This latest edition of FleetBeat offers a new and insightful view into how our data intersects with retail trends, and we couldn't be more excited by the results."

"This is truly a groundbreaking new report, viewed from the perspective of the fleet management industry," said Dr. Fuller. "Based on Fleetmatics' FleetBeat second edition report, Fleetmatics data explains much of the variation and growth in retail sales. Furthermore, when comparing the Fleetmatics' small business service fleet activity data with the retail sales data from Moody's and the U.S. Bureau of Census, it's clear the two data sets exhibit an extremely high correlation. I believe the ability to analyze real-time telematics data can now be considered an accurate data source on the small business flow of goods and service."

To reach this conclusion, the report started with a dataset of over 10.7 billion telematics-generated data points from commercial vehicles managed with the Company's SaaS platform in the U.S. and used regression analysis to compare the data with monthly retail sales data nationally. There were eight telematics-derived, independent parameters considered in the analysis, both in aggregate and at the per vehicle level, including those related to mileage, number of vehicle stops, mileage per stop, number of active vehicle days per month, and number of vehicles active in a month. The data was drawn from small business customers defined as entities having fleets from 5 to 100 vehicles, and only fleets from business types that were related to or supporting retail and service sectors were considered.

In addition to analyzing the correlation between small business vehicle telematics data and retail sales through a national lens, the report also examined regional differences that drive activities of small business services companies in four markets: New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. The result was an in-depth breakdown of the most prominent indicators of small business economic activity and correlation to retails sales in each core market.

Fleetmatics' first FleetBeat report highlighted the economic impact of telematics adoption and quantifiable benefits of business intelligence-driven fleet management. The report found that the total estimated economic impact of commercial fleet vehicles armed with telematics – assuming everyone had the same results as Fleetmatics' optimized customers – would amount to $2.2 billion in fuel savings, a decrease in CO2 emissions by 5 tons per year and $34.9 billion in total cost savings due to decrease in payroll hours. 

About Fleetmatics Group PLC

Fleetmatics Group PLC is a leading global provider of mobile workforce solutions for service-based businesses of all sizes delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS). Our solutions enable businesses to meet the challenges associated with managing local fleets, and improve the productivity of their mobile workforces, by extracting actionable business intelligence from real-time and historical vehicle and driver behavioral data.

Fleetmatics Group's intuitive, cost-effective Web-based solutions provide fleet operators with visibility into vehicle location, fuel usage, speed and mileage, and other insights into their mobile workforce, enabling them to reduce operating and capital costs, as well as increase revenue. An integrated, full-featured mobile workforce management product provides additional efficiencies related to job management by empowering the field worker and speeding the job completion process - quote through payment. As of December 31, 2014, Fleetmatics served over 25,000 customers, with approximately 552,000 subscribed vehicles worldwide. Fleetmatics has used, and intends to continue to use, the investor relations portions of its website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with disclosures obligations under Regulation FD. To learn more about Fleetmatics, visit www.fleetmatics.com.

Media Contact:

Juli Burda
Fleetmatics
[email protected]
(847) 378-4398

Dave Ladetto
Weber Shandwick
[email protected]
617-520-7042

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SOURCE Fleetmatics Group PLC

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