Trend analysis: Sharing economy & product-as-a-service — where the value pools are (and who captures them)

The global sharing economy is projected to reach $794 billion by 2028, yet roughly 70% of value accrues to just three subsegments: mobility platforms, equipment-as-a-service, and fashion rental and resale. For investors and operators, understanding where value pools concentrate, and which business models actually retain margin, is the difference between backing a category leader and funding a commodity intermediary.

Why It Matters

Product-as-a-service (PaaS) and sharing economy models are reshaping how consumers and businesses access goods. Rather than transferring ownership, these models monetize utilization: a power drill used 13 minutes in its lifetime becomes a shared asset generating revenue across dozens of users. The environmental logic is straightforward (fewer products manufactured, lower resource extraction, reduced waste). The economic logic is more nuanced.

European regulators are accelerating adoption through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which mandates durability, repairability, and recycled content requirements that favor circular business models. The EU Circular Economy Action Plan targets doubling the circular material use rate by 2030. These policy tailwinds are creating structural advantages for companies that own assets and manage their lifecycle versus those that simply facilitate peer-to-peer transactions.

For investors, the critical question is not whether sharing and PaaS models will grow, but which layers of the value chain capture durable margin. Platform fees, asset ownership, data monetization, and aftermarket services each offer different return profiles with different risk characteristics.

Key Concepts

Product-as-a-Service (PaaS): A business model where customers pay for access to a product's function rather than owning the product itself. The provider retains ownership and responsibility for maintenance, repair, and end-of-life management. Examples include Hilti's tool fleet management and Signify's lighting-as-a-service.

Utilization rate: The percentage of time an asset is actively generating revenue or delivering value. Higher utilization rates improve unit economics. Shared mobility vehicles typically achieve 30-45% utilization versus 4-5% for privately owned cars.

Total addressable market (TAM) versus serviceable addressable market (SAM): Not every product category is suitable for sharing or PaaS. High-value, low-utilization, durable goods with standardized use cases represent the strongest SAM. Categories like personal hygiene products or highly customized tools have limited sharing potential.

Residual value management: The ability to capture value from products at end-of-first-life through refurbishment, remanufacturing, or materials recovery. Companies that control residual value unlock a second (and sometimes third) revenue cycle from the same asset.

What's Working

B2B equipment-as-a-service is scaling profitably. Hilti's fleet management program, covering drills, saws, and measuring equipment for construction firms, now serves over 300,000 customers globally. The model delivers 15-20% higher lifetime revenue per customer compared to outright sales, while reducing customer capital expenditure by 30-40%. Hilti retains ownership, manages maintenance, and recovers tools for refurbishment, capturing residual value that would otherwise be lost.

Fashion resale platforms have found product-market fit in Europe. Vinted, the Lithuanian platform, reached profitability in 2023 with 80 million registered users across 18 European markets. The platform's zero-commission model for sellers (monetized through buyer protection fees and promoted listings) has driven transaction volumes past 900 million items. Vestiaire Collective, focused on luxury resale, processes over 18 million items with average order values exceeding EUR 200. Both platforms demonstrate that peer-to-peer resale can achieve scale when trust infrastructure (authentication, payments, logistics) is robust.

Shared mobility is consolidating around profitable unit economics. Tier Mobility merged with Dott in 2022, creating Europe's largest shared micromobility operator. The combined entity operates over 300,000 vehicles across 400 cities and reached EBITDA profitability in key markets by 2024. The path to profitability required ruthless focus on vehicle durability (extending lifespan from 6 months to 3+ years), dynamic pricing, and regulatory partnerships that secured exclusive operating zones.

Industrial PaaS is reducing total cost of ownership. Signify's lighting-as-a-service model, deployed across Schiphol Airport and other major European facilities, reduces energy costs by 50-70% while eliminating capital expenditure on lighting infrastructure. Signify retains ownership of luminaires, manages upgrades, and recovers materials at end of life. The model converts a commodity product sale into a recurring revenue stream with 10-15 year contract durations.

What's Not Working

Peer-to-peer sharing of consumer goods has struggled to reach scale. Platforms like Fat Llama (peer-to-peer item rental) and Peerby faced persistent challenges with logistics costs, trust deficits, and low transaction frequency. The cost of insuring, transporting, and verifying condition of shared items often exceeds the rental value for goods under EUR 100. Most successful consumer sharing models have shifted to managed marketplaces where the platform controls quality and logistics rather than pure peer-to-peer exchange.

Car-sharing cooperatives face utilization challenges outside dense urban cores. While platforms like Cambio and Stadtmobil maintain loyal user bases in German and Belgian cities, expansion into suburban and rural areas has proven uneconomical. Vehicle utilization drops below 15% in lower-density areas, making fleet economics unsustainable without public subsidy. Free-floating car-sharing operators like ShareNow (the BMW-Daimler joint venture) withdrew from multiple North American and European markets between 2019 and 2022 due to insufficient demand density.

Subscription fatigue is limiting consumer PaaS growth in some categories. Early enthusiasm for subscription models in furniture (Fernish), clothing (Rent the Runway), and consumer electronics has met resistance as consumers accumulate subscriptions. Rent the Runway's stock declined over 90% from its IPO peak as subscriber growth stalled and unit economics remained challenging with high logistics and cleaning costs. The lesson: PaaS models require categories where the value of access clearly exceeds ownership costs, including the friction of returns and exchanges.

Remanufacturing infrastructure remains underdeveloped. Many PaaS providers struggle to extract residual value from returned products because remanufacturing and refurbishment capacity is limited. Caterpillar's Cat Reman program is a notable exception, remanufacturing over 2 million components annually, but most industries lack equivalent infrastructure. Without robust reverse logistics and remanufacturing, PaaS models lose the second-life revenue that makes their economics compelling.

Value Pool Map

Value Pool	Estimated Size (2026)	Margin Profile	Key Captors
Shared mobility (micro + car)	$45-55B globally	10-18% EBITDA at scale	Tier/Dott, Lime, Cambio
B2B equipment-as-a-service	$25-35B in Europe	18-25% operating margin	Hilti, Caterpillar, Atlas Copco
Fashion resale and rental	$30-40B in Europe	12-20% EBITDA	Vinted, Vestiaire Collective, Zalando Pre-Owned
Industrial PaaS (lighting, HVAC, compressed air)	$15-20B globally	15-22% operating margin	Signify, Carrier, Atlas Copco
Platform infrastructure (payments, logistics, trust)	$8-12B globally	25-40% gross margin	Stripe, Adyen, DHL Supply Chain
Data and analytics (utilization, demand forecasting)	$3-5B globally	50-70% gross margin	Palantir, internal platforms

Key Players

Established Leaders

• Hilti: Pioneer in construction equipment fleet management with 300,000+ customers. Generates recurring revenue through tool-as-a-service contracts with 15-20% higher lifetime customer value.
• Signify: Former Philips Lighting division operating lighting-as-a-service across major European airports and commercial facilities. Contracts span 10-15 years with built-in LED upgrade cycles.
• Caterpillar: Cat Reman program remanufactures 2 million+ components annually, capturing residual value and reducing raw material consumption by up to 90% per component.
• Atlas Copco: Compressor-as-a-service model deployed across European manufacturing, delivering 20-30% energy savings with remote monitoring and predictive maintenance.

Emerging Startups

• Vinted: Europe's largest peer-to-peer fashion resale platform with 80 million registered users across 18 markets. Reached profitability in 2023 using buyer-fee monetization.
• Grover: Berlin-based electronics subscription platform offering consumer tech rentals with flexible terms. Partners with MediaMarkt and Samsung for device lifecycle management.
• Lizee: French SaaS provider enabling brands to launch rental and second-hand programs. Clients include Decathlon, Petit Bateau, and Aigle.
• Rheaply: Asset exchange platform for enterprises, enabling internal and cross-organization sharing of underutilized equipment and materials.

Key Investors and Funders

• Accel: Lead investor in Vinted's EUR 250 million round, backing European consumer marketplace models.
• EQT Ventures: Investor in circular economy startups including Grover and refurbishment platforms.
• European Investment Bank (EIB): Providing debt financing for circular economy infrastructure, including remanufacturing facilities and shared mobility fleets.

Action Checklist

• Map your product portfolio for PaaS suitability using three criteria: asset value above EUR 500, utilization rate below 30%, and standardized use cases
• Benchmark total cost of ownership for PaaS versus purchase for your top 5 capital equipment categories
• Evaluate residual value capture infrastructure: can you refurbish, remanufacture, or recycle returned assets at scale?
• Assess data monetization opportunities from connected assets (utilization patterns, predictive maintenance, demand forecasting)
• Review regulatory exposure to ESPR and EU Circular Economy Action Plan requirements that may favor or mandate PaaS models
• For investors: conduct due diligence on utilization rates, customer acquisition costs, and unit economics at current scale versus projected scale
• Identify platform infrastructure needs (payments, logistics, insurance, authentication) and evaluate build-versus-buy decisions

FAQ

Which product categories are best suited for product-as-a-service? High-value, durable goods with low private utilization rates offer the strongest unit economics. Construction equipment (utilization 15-25% when owned), commercial lighting, and industrial compressors are proven categories. Consumer categories work best when items have high fashion or technology obsolescence risk (electronics, luxury fashion) that makes ownership less attractive than access.

How do sharing economy platforms achieve profitability? Profitable platforms share three characteristics: high transaction frequency per user (4+ transactions per month), controlled logistics costs (either digital delivery or dense geographic coverage), and network effects that reduce customer acquisition costs over time. B2B models tend to reach profitability faster due to larger contract values and lower churn.

What role does regulation play in driving PaaS adoption in Europe? The EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) requires manufacturers to design for durability, repairability, and recyclability, all of which increase the viability of PaaS models. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes make manufacturers financially responsible for end-of-life management, incentivizing retention of ownership. The upcoming Digital Product Passport requirement will create data infrastructure that supports asset tracking across multiple use cycles.

How should investors evaluate sharing economy companies? Focus on four metrics: utilization rate (higher is better, target above 30%), customer lifetime value relative to customer acquisition cost (target 3:1 or higher), gross margin per transaction after logistics costs, and residual value recovery rate for returned assets. Companies that own their assets and control the full lifecycle tend to deliver more predictable returns than pure marketplace models.

Sources

1. PricewaterhouseCoopers. "The Sharing Economy: Consumer Intelligence Series." PwC, 2025.
2. European Commission. "EU Circular Economy Action Plan: Implementation Report." EC, 2025.
3. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. "Product-as-a-Service: Business Model Innovation for Circularity." EMF, 2024.
4. Vinted Group. "Annual Report 2024." Vinted, 2025.
5. Hilti Group. "Fleet Management Program Impact Assessment." Hilti, 2024.
6. McKinsey & Company. "Shared Mobility: Value Pools and Profitability Pathways." McKinsey, 2025.
7. BloombergNEF. "Circular Economy Investment Tracker." BNEF, 2025.