Amid its move to a private corporation through its merger with Mitsui & Co., the Penske Automotive Group led the other five top public auto groups in third-quarter gross profit per unit for new and used sales.
Driving the news: Stephens, Inc., published its compilation of sales data for Lithia Motors, Penske, AutoNation, Group 1 Automotive, Asbury Automotive Group and Sonic Automotive for the third quarter.
Lithia, with its 471 stores, led all the publics in revenue with $9.9 billion, a 3% increase from the third quarter of 2025.
Penske finished at $8.4 billion, AutoNation at $7 billion, Group 1 at $5.3 billion, Asbury at $4.4 billion, and Sonic at $3.9 billion, a record quarter.
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Standing out with gross: Penske, notably in the quarter, posted a group best of $4,158 gross per unit on new vehicles, more than $1,000 better than Group 1 as the second-best.
Penske also posted a $1,947 gross per unit for used sales.
While leading, Penske’s new sales gross dropped $216 per unit and $149 on the used side.
Penske noted its revenue “increased 2% on a same-store basis” year over year, and automotive service and parts revenue was up 3%.
F&I shifts: The F&I per unit was down from the second quarter for all the groups, ranging from a decrease of $40 for Asbury Automotive to $101 for AutoNation.
AutoNation did post a best of $2,698 per unit for F&I.
Sonic, which was the lone group to see F&I per unit increase year-over-year for the quarter, finished at $2,599.
Bottom line: While sales numbers were mixed, four of the six groups (Lithia, Penske, AutoNation, and Sonic) saw year-over-year revenue increases.
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