With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are automotive retail, general merchandisers, internet retail, and specialty retail.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Retailing

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-308-Sonic Automotive

The automotive retailer operates more than 100 dealerships and 25 different brands of automobiles.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500 2020 301 Sonic Automotive

The Charlotte, N.C.-based automotive retailer sells new and used cars and light trucks, replacement parts, and vehicle services via a network of dealerships in 12 states.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

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Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

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EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Sonic Automotive is one of the largest automotive retailers in the United States. Operating over 100 dealerships across 13 states, Sonic represents more than 25 automotive brands, offering new and used vehicle sales, replacement parts, vehicle maintenance, and collision repair services. The company also owns EchoPark Automotive, a rapidly growing network specializing in pre-owned vehicles, providing a unique car-buying experience. Committed to delivering exceptional guest experiences, Sonic emphasizes transparency, efficiency, and customer satisfaction through its innovative One Sonic One Experience approach.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Sonic Automotive (SAH): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Sonic Automotive

sonic automotive

Good morning and welcome to the Sonic Automotive First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. This conference call is being recorded today, Thursday, 04/24/2025. Presentation materials, which accompany management's discussion on the conference call can be accessed at the company's website at ir.sonicautomotive.com. At this time, I would like to refer to the Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995. During this conference call, management may discuss financial projections, information or expectations about the company's products or market or otherwise make statements about the future.

Such statements are forward looking and subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, management may discuss certain non GAAP financial measures as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to the non GAAP reconciliation tables in the company's current report on Form eight ks filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier today. I would now like to introduce Mr.

David Smith, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sonic Automotive. Mr. Smith, you may begin your conference.

Thank you very much and good morning everyone. Welcome to the Sonic Automotive first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. As you said, I'm David Smith, the company's Chairman and CEO. Joining me on today's call is our President, Jeff Dyke our CFO, Heath Byrd and our Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Danny Wylan.

We would like to open the call by sincerely thanking our amazing teammates for continuing to deliver a world class guest experience for our customers. We believe our strong relationships with our teammates, our manufacturer and lending partners and our guests are key to our future success. And as always, I would like to thank them all for their support and loyalty to the Sonic Automotive team. Turning now to our first quarter results. GAAP EPS was $2.04 per share and excluding the effect of certain items as detailed in our press release this morning, adjusted EPS was $1.48 per share, a 9% increase year over year.

First quarter consolidated total revenues were a first quarter record of 8% year over year while consolidated gross profit grew 6% and consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased 7%. Moving to our franchised dealership segment results. In the first quarter, we generated first quarter record franchise revenues of $3,100,000,000 up 9% year over year. This revenue growth was driven by an 11% increase in new retail volume and a 6% increase in fixed operations revenues. First quarter results benefited from an increase in new vehicle sales in the final days of the quarter, which we expect was the result of customers buying in advance of tariffs that went into effect on April 2.

Our fixed operations gross profit and F and I gross profit also set first quarter records up 79% year over year respectively. Same store new vehicle GPU was $3,089 down sequentially from the fourth quarter due to our luxury brand mix and in line with our guidance given on our last call. On the used vehicle side of the franchise business, same store used vehicle volume decreased 2% year over year driven by lower levels of late model used vehicles and consumer affordability challenges. Same store used GPU increased sequentially to $15.55 dollars per unit. Our F and I performance continues to be a strength with same store franchised F and I GPU of $2,442 in the first quarter, up 1% sequentially and 4% year over year.

The continued stability in F and I at these levels supports our view that F and I per unit will remain structurally higher than pre pandemic levels even in a challenging consumer affordability environment. Our parts and service or fixed operations business remained strong with a 7% increase in same store fixed operations gross profit in the first quarter. This strong growth was driven in part by higher levels of warranty repairs combined with the effects of the increase in technician headcount we achieved in 2024. Turning now to the EchoPark segment. First quarter segment income was an all time quarterly record $10,300,000 and adjusted EBITDA was an all time quarterly record of $15,800,000 up 116% year over year.

For the first quarter, we reported EchoPark revenues of $560,000,000 flat year over year and all time record quarterly EchoPark gross profit of $64,000,000 up 21% from the prior year. EchoPark segment retail unit sales volume for the quarter was approximately 18,800 units, up 5% year over year. On a same market basis, which excludes closed stores, EchoPark revenue was up 3%. Gross profit was up 19% and retail unit sales volume increased 7% year over year. EchoPark segment total gross profit per unit was an all time quarterly record of $3,411 per unit, up $456 per unit year over year, rebounding from the temporary GPU pressure we faced in the fourth quarter as we indicated on our previous earnings call.

We continue to believe that our data driven centralized inventory management strategy is a key differentiator for EchoPark, which should help to minimize disruptions from market volatility in the short term, while maximizing EchoPark's long term growth potential. When combined with the strategic adjustments we've made to our EchoPark business model, we believe we are well positioned to resume disciplined long term growth for EchoPark once used vehicle market conditions sufficiently improve. Turning now to our Power Sports segment. We generated record first quarter revenues of $34,400,000 first quarter gross profit of $8,500,000 and a segment adjusted EBITDA loss of $700,000 which was in line with our expectations for a seasonally light first quarter. We are beginning to see the benefits of our investment in modernizing the powersports business and we remain focused on identifying operational synergies within our current network before deploying capital to expand our powersports footprint.

Finally, turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $947,000,000 in available liquidity, including $430,000,000 in combined cash and floor plan deposits on hand. We continue to maintain a disciplined balance sheet approach with the ability to deploy capital to grow strategically as market conditions evolve. Additionally, I'm pleased to report today that our Board of Directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per share payable on 07/15/2025 to all stockholders of record on 06/13/2025. As you can see on page 13 in the investor presentation we released this morning, we have updated or withdrawn certain items in our previous financial guidance for 2025 in light of uncertainty around the effects that the tariffs are expected to have on the automotive industry. We are working closely with our manufacturer partners to understand the tariff impact and our manufacturer production and pricing decisions and the resulting impact that tariffs may have on vehicle affordability and consumer demand.

Despite these challenges, our team remains focused on near term execution and adapting to ongoing changes in the automotive retail environment and macroeconomic backdrop, while making strategic decisions to maximize long term returns. Furthermore, we remain confident that we have the right strategy and the right people and the right culture to continue to grow our business and create long term value for our stockholders. This concludes our opening remarks and we look forward to answering any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of John Murphy with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, guys. Morning. I just wanted to ask a first question around sort of the obvious on tariffs and just maybe from three specific angles if you could comment as best you know right now. First, what kind of commentary are you getting from your factory partners? Second, as you think about the pull forward in March and early April, what you're seeing outside of your stores, maybe inside of your stores on pricing and GPUs because it doesn't seem like you've necessarily taken advantage of stuff there yet, but there's certainly stories of other folks.

And then third, what kind of impact do you think the uncertainty has around M and A activity and pricing?

It's Jeff, John. From a manufacturer's perspective, this is the all balls in the air right now. No one really knows. Parts are coming in from out of the country on American made cars. And so it's for us, it's just steady as she goes.

We had a great first quarter. We think we're going to have a great second quarter. And we believe based on conversation with the manufacturers over the next ninety days that things will settle down. Is there going to be a price increase? Maybe, but we don't see it as being a 25 percent price increase.

And we've had price increases before and we faced a lot tougher situations than this. And the industry is Teflon from my perspective. We can we'll battle our way through this. And we just are not watching the news. We're putting our head down.

We're going to work. We're very focused on executing our playbooks, our processes and we think those results showed up in the first quarter. And we'll see what happens in the coming months ahead. But I'm not and our team is not too concerned that we won't have solid resolution over the next ninety days or so. And I think the manufacturers will end up participating if the tariffs come along in some sort of cost cutting measure to help with MSRP pricing.

Maybe the dealers and the consumers have to participate a little bit, not sure yet. And hopefully, the governments will come along and get a hold of this. But at the end of the day, it's not some massive concerns. In terms of M and A, it hasn't really made a huge difference at this point. We've got a lot of discussions going on.

Certainly, it's come up. If anything, maybe it's we're buying a little bit of time just to kind of see what happens over the next ninety days before we finalize some transactions, but no big changes there from our perspective.

And John, this is David. I think one thing to mention about pricing because I think you alluded to it is that some dealers out there are I think taking advantage of the situation and taking advantage of customers and we're definitely not doing that. We have our the highest guest satisfaction we've ever had and we want to keep it that way. And so we're doing more market pricing and not gouging our customers.

I appreciate the balance for you. Maybe just one quick second one on fixed ops. I know you guys were a little slow on headcount hiring last year. Just curious if there's any update there and what kind of opportunity you think there is to ramp up that hiring process and really

It's Jeff. Look, at the end of the day, since last March, we fired three forty five incremental technicians in the organization, and that's made a huge difference from us for us in terms of fixed ops. So we'll continue to hire as we grow through the year. We've got capacity with open stalls and bays for those technicians that we're hiring. And it's been a huge focus for us as you know since the end of the first quarter last year when we sort of put our stake in the ground and changed our culture in our fixed operations departments to focus on bringing in more technicians as a part of our culture and driving our growth.

And I think the results have proven that in the last four or five quarters.

And we've had a number of stores where we opportunistically were growing our service. We're building new stalls, adding stalls. So there's definitely opportunity to grow.

Agree. I'm sorry. A quick reminder on that John, we added about a third of those headcount in the last two months of last year. And so we're still really trying to get those newly hired or newer hired technicians to full productivity. So there's still some runway there.

And right now with the additional warranty and recall activity we're seeing, there's a lot of volume running through the service lanes. So as we go forward and get those technicians fully productive, we'll be better to balance better able to balance the customer pay and warranty side of the business as long as these warranty tailwinds persist.

Super helpful. Just one follow-up on that. I mean as you think about the opportunity is a lot of it volume or because you're in the high class you have the high class problem of too much demand that you might see door rates inch up a bit?

I mean, we're looking at our door rates on a quarterly basis, John. That's something that's been ongoing forever. Now the demand, the volume is there. There's just plenty of volume from a fixed perspective and we're taking advantage of that. And there are more techs to be hired.

And our culture has taken over. We're not having to push so hard to hire techs. The culture has taken over and our teams are out bringing in techs and they see the results. It's made a big, big difference. And again, that's been a year in the making of really changing our store level culture from a fixed operations perspective to get us to where we are.

As David and Danny said, there's a lot of upside there.

Yes. So fair say volume and price, right opportunity?

I'll just add one point John. And speaking of tariff impact, services is one of those areas where we can pass that along to the consumer. So that's another opportunity we think if there are tariff issues, people are making a buy versus repair decision that can help that and we can pass along the tariff increase to the consumer.

Love the whole time, the whole team tagging in there. Appreciate all the answers. Thank you guys.

next question comes from the line of Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning guys. This is Patrick Buckley on for Bret. Thanks for taking our questions.

bit more about what the GPU trajectory looks like from here? I guess with Q1 above the '25 outlook, When should we start modeling in contraction and what's driving that?

I mean, it's just sort of an unknown right now based on what's going on with the tariffs. If nothing changes and things are steady as she goes, I mean, the margins that you saw in the first quarter should hold true on the franchise side throughout the end of the year. And EchoPark's margins are growing. We're buying a larger percentage of our cars off the street. We've moved from 20 to 25% up to 30% to as high as 35% of the cars now on a weekly basis coming from street purchases.

That's making a big difference in our front margins and that really helped out in March of the first quarter and it's carrying over into April and that's a change for us. So front end margins are improving there and we expect that to continue.

Great. Thank you. And then I guess on BEVs, have you seen any changes year to date with the current administration and just a little shake up as far as mandates? And I guess what's the current outlook there on inventory versus demand?

Yes. It's dropping. If we have less supply. Yes, we're I mean everything positive there. I mean the thing is that now inventory levels are beginning to get closer to matching what consumer demand is and that's where it should be.

With the inventory levels, right. And so, we're applauding that. We're having to carry less inventory that doesn't turn as fast. We think the manufacturers are coming around and that's the new administration that's supporting that and that's a big applause from this team.

And you could see in the front end GPUs, we had a headwind of around three fifty and the full year of 2024 is down to 200 in Q1. So aligning that inventory to demand is helping reduce that headwind in EV GPU.

And we think some of our manufacturer partners are a great job with offering vehicles that where it's really speaking of customer demand, the customer gets to select their drivetrain. And that strategy is a great strategy. So if they want an electric vehicle, they can choose an electric one or if they want an ICE, they can choose that. We like that strategy.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Licht with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking our question. Good morning.

you could break down the warranty work, service and parts work a little bit as it relates to warranty customer pay. I know you're getting into a little bit, but just what the metrics were in terms of warranty growth as it relates to the comp and customer pay?

Yes, about 40% warranty growth in the first quarter versus the 2% to 3% customer pay growth. That's not a mix we like at all. It's an adjustment that we're making. We need to a lot more focus on getting our CP customers through the lanes and pushing the warranty work out a little bit. And those are adjustments that you'll see us make in the second quarter.

That's just too big of a differentiator in the mix between warranty and customer pay for our liking. And there's a lot of warranty work out there that can't be helped. But we need to adjust in terms of that mix coming through our lanes.

And we think it's a great sign of our that our team, you may want to mention that, that they already highlighted and noticed that. It wasn't like that we just noticed this

Yes. The team towards the end of the first quarter saying, look, this is just not the mix of revenue coming through the service drive is not the mix we like. We need to start making some adjustments and those adjustments are being made. And we've got the technician headcount now to handle that and that's growing.

So put all that together, and we think we can pivot pretty quickly in how that mix is coming through the service drive in the second quarter.

Is there evidence? Or do you have ways to track kind of the occurrence of crowding out customer pay because of the warranty? I mean, do you see yourself even inadvertently turning away customer pay jobs in lieu

intentionally, but it's common sense. I mean, if you got that much warranty coming through, it's easier work, it's higher margin, it's everybody's taking the licks at that. And it's just it's not the right way to run the shop. You need to load the shop differently. We know that.

There's a lot of warranty hit us all at the same time. And service provider can take a warranty job in. Technician can flip it and get another one real quick because there's another one standing in line. And so we're not doing the additional service requests and the things I think from a playbook perspective that we should do. We got to slow down and execute at a higher level.

It's great to have the warranty work. It certainly played a big role in our quarter from a fixed perspective. But we can do a better job in making sure that we're balancing customer pay and fixed the right customer pay and warranty the right way and loading the shop appropriately and we're making those changes.

Yes. And I would say it's more of rather than saying turning customers away, it's more scheduling properly.

And just a quick one on EchoPark. If you and this is kind of just a hypothetical. If you think about a tariff scenario where, let's just say, the SAAR does go down, pick your number, 1,000,000 units, one point million because prices rise. And obviously, that's going to come at the franchise dealers, there'll be less trade ins where franchise dealers tend to get more of their supply through trade ins. I'm just curious, I could see either way how this could affect EchoPark.

Obviously, is the whole premise is it's a value proposition. When you think about the puts and takes of all the different dynamics in terms of less stuff going through the auction lane and whatnot. Do you guys view a tariff scenario as beneficial to EchoPark? Or would it be a headwind?

Well, we've seen this video before, right? I mean, we played this out in 2020 and 2021 and 2022 with COVID and we're prepared for it. That's why you're seeing us buy a lot more cars off the street. We think we can push that up even higher, maybe the 40% to 45% level. This is just turning knobs.

We are really in shape for something like this where I would say that we were not when COVID hit. And so it could have been a headwind if this was 2020, but we don't look at it like that now. We're very prepared and just had an amazing first quarter with EchoPark. We look to have another one in the second quarter. April shoring up that way.

And prices at the auctions are already up over $1,000 a car from what we're seeing in buying, but margins are continuing to grow volume solid. So, don't see it being a big problem.

if you think about it, we've noticed that especially in our mature markets, as you may have heard on our previous calls, our EchoPark stores have the number one Reputation dot com score in the industry. So we're seeing where a lot of repeat customers, their friends and family coming to EchoPark. And those people as you've seen our gross is going up, people are identifying EchoPark and saying, we want to go there and buy a car and just choosing to go there first. And we're seeing that in our numbers. So I think that our team will adapt.

Prices go up. I still think that customers will pay for that amazing guest experience.

Not just the sourcing. Obviously, sourcing could go up. But if your demand goes up and your value proposition goes up, even your prices could go up, but your value proposition relative to the alternative could actually widen. That's what I was trying to get at is

100%. Saw that at the March, we're seeing it in April.

still going to be higher in the marketplace. Even if our price is $1,000 higher, everybody else is going be a lot higher, including our own franchise stores. So it's just the difference in the model. And we really have that dialed in, in particular around the inventory management, the day supply, how fast we're moving inventory through the system, twenty to twenty two, twenty three day supply on lot. We're turning those cars in twelve days just as fast as they can go.

We don't the inventory is not sitting. And so it just if you can turn the the two is going win and we have that we've had great education.

Between what we saw in 'twenty one through 'twenty three versus what you may we're a lot smarter and more nimble than we were even '24, '30 '6 months ago.

Four fifteen cars, a rooftop in March, every store profitable and the big EchoPark stores among the most profitable that we had in the company. And so we've got it dialed in and now the question is can we get inventory to stabilize a little bit because once we do that we can start opening some stores and we're hopeful that towards the end of the year or the beginning of next year we can start announcing, hey, we're going to bring a strategy that shows you how we're going grow the footprint of EchoPark.

And it's worth mentioning that our new EchoPark store in Houston, for example, we've gotten speaking of things we've learned as we opened that store and I think November. I mean, it went off like very efficiently. We've got a mature team in there and they did 400 plus cars like in their second month.

Yes. And have been profitable since day one. So which is just a great sign.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much and best of luck in Q2.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Great. Sorry, have just one more follow-up on EchoPark here. The first quarter results obviously pretty strong here. It looks like you did take up your full year guidance, but maybe it seems a bit conservative in context of how strong the first quarter was. It looks like you feel good about the EchoPark retail GPU, the F and I, you maintained your unit guidance.

I'm curious like why isn't the guidance higher than the range you provided based on the first quarter start?

Noise. We've taken the guidance up further.

Sorry, I think like there might be some issues with my line, I'll try again.

It broke up like in the response, I can check the transcript. Maybe it's on my line, but I'm not sure it looks like others have got it. But if you want to repeat the answer, that's fine. Yes. It's a headwind on SG and A.

That's no problem. We said you sound like our Board of Directors yesterday in our Board meeting asking the exact same questions. And look, the tariffs are playing a role in our forecast there. We'll get a lot more we can get more aggressive if things play out the way we think they're going to from a tariff perspective and they turn positive. But we need to be conservative there Rajat, so we don't get out ahead of ourselves if things do get tighter from a used car pricing perspective.

And so, further adjustments as we get into announcing the second quarter if things play out the way we think from a tariff perspective.

Understood. Understood. That's helpful. And then just on SG and A, one of the things you've noticed in your print and some of the peers that have reported, we did see a little more deleveraging in the first quarter than maybe at least what I had been expecting and maybe some other investors might have been expecting. Some of your peers talked about like some weather headwinds in January, February, a couple lower selling days that might have caused that.

I was curious if there's anything you would want to call out on the SG and A if the leverage was in line with your expectations or was it worse or better? And also, have there been any pay plan or commission type adjustments within the workforce that's maybe driving the SG and A higher and which could be more sticky? So just wanted to unpack all of this a little bit if possible. That's all I had. Thanks.

Sonic Automotive (SAH) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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