Sharjah24 – AFP: US-European carmaker Stellantis said Tuesday it had agreed to purchase Share Now, a joint venture between German giants BMW and Mercedes, as it aims to make advances in the car-sharing market.

Share Now would be acquired by Stellantis's car-sharing subsidiary Free2move, the group said in a statement.

The agreement would see the service "14 major European cities" and increasing its fleet five-fold, the statement said, building on the recent acquisition of Opel Rent in Germany and Austria.

Free2move would also would also "add more than 3.4 million customers to its two million users," the group said.

While no financial details were published, the acquisition was likely a "bargain deal" for Stellantis, according to German car market expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer.

The price to be paid for the platform was "a bit above 100 million euros" ($105.5 million), according to a source close to the sellers.

BMW and Mercedes's decision to unload their joint venture came after a number of "extremely difficult years" for the service, as it struggled to establish a profitable business, Dudenhoeffer said.

Share Now quit markets in the US and Canada in 2020, amid lower-than-expected interest in its services, before the coronavirus pandemic hit the business.