Hertz Global Holdings in the first quarter reported what it called its strongest year-over-year revenue growth in three years, CEO Gil West said on a Thursday morning earnings call.
The company also delivered its strongest first-quarter revenue-per-day improvement since 2022, West added. "We saw sequential improvements in both [revenue per unit] and RPD throughout the quarter," he said. "These results are especially meaningful given the environment we were operating in."
That environment featured headwinds including elevated recalls, a partial government shutdown, higher Transportation Security Administration wait times and storm disruptions across key markets, West said. "This quarter, recalls were up nearly 300 percent, temporarily shrinking our rentable fleet," he said.
Despite the challenges, Hertz generated "greater durable demand from higher-margin channels," chief commercial officer Sandeep Dube said. "Direct website demand is showing strong growth. Our corporate business is gaining ground."
"U.S. airports showed particular strong improvement with RPD up about 8 percent," he added.
West spoke at length about Oro, Hertz's new mobility business tied to an expanded Uber partnership. The new operating company will support Uber's autonomous robotaxi program and provide for Uber a fleet of vehicles operated by Oro-employed drivers.
"Oro is built to fill the gap between autonomous technology, vehicles and demand platforms, managing and servicing fleets reliably, efficiently, safely and at scale," he said, adding that "Oro owns, maintains and operates a fleet of vehicles, employing and managing over 1,000 drivers under a high-quality turnkey operating structure."
As noted in last week's announcement, those drivers were active on the Uber platform in Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. West added that they launched this week in Northern New Jersey.
When asked by an analyst how to value the business now, West said that doing so today "is tough. The problem with our current valuation is that it's almost entirely based on traditional rent-a-car business, which is understandable," he said. "That's a paradigm that's hard to overcome."
He added that Oro if valued as a standalone business could have a sizeable valuation. Same for Hertz's fleet business. But each has different growth rates, different profit margins and different capital requirements.
"Along with figuring out the strategy around how to create the value, we also have to figure out the best way to report it," Dube noted.
Hertz Q1 Metrics
Hertz reported first-quarter total revenue of $2 billion, up 11 percent year over year. "It was our strongest year-over-year revenue growth in three years," West said. The net loss for the quarter was $333 million compared with a net loss of $443 million a year prior.
The average rentable vehicles for the quarter were up 4 percent year over year to about 493,400. Transaction days (34.9 million) were up 3 percent, and total revenue per day was up 5 percent to $57.38.
The Americas segment reported more than $1.6 billion in revenue, up 9 percent for the period. The average rentable vehicles increased 4 percent to about 401,100. Transaction days (28.6 million) increased 3 percent, and RPD was up 6 percent to $57.
International revenue was $376 million, up 16 percent from Q1 2025. The average rentable vehicles increased 3 percent to nearly 92,300. Transaction days (6.3 million) increased 3 percent, and RPD also was up 3 percent to $59.12.
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