Orange County’s largest auto dealers reported their seventh straight year of increased sales.
The 37 dealers on the Business Journal’s annual list combined for $4.7 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, up 3.6%. It was also the biggest sales increase since 2015, when dealers reported a 5.9% jump.
For the past two years, sales volume growth has hovered around 1%. The number of new-vehicle sales was up 1% at 79,576 units as used vehicle sales jumped 11% to 34,026.
New-vehicle sales nevertheless outpaced national numbers. U.S. auto dealers reported a 1.8% decline last year, selling 17.2 million cars and light trucks to end a seven-year growth streak.
Employment of sales and service personnel among OC’s top dealers rose 1% to 2,796.
On this year’s list, 23 companies had revenue increases; three were flat; and seven showed declines. Figures for the remaining four are Business Journal estimates.
The list ranks dealers with sales over $30 million.
• There are five newcomers to the list: Subaru Orange Coast in Santa Ana, Tuttle-Click Mazda in Irvine, Volkswagen South Coast in Santa Ana, Tuttle-Click Hyundai in Irvine and Crevier Mini in Santa Ana.
• Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach retained the top spot with $661.8 million in sales, a nearly 2% year-over-year increase. The number of new-vehicle sales fell 3.6% to 6,476, and used car sales rose a whopping 31% to 2,925. It employed 306, up 6.3%.
• No. 2, Crevier BMW, which is owned by Michigan-based Penske Automotive Group, was flat at $345 million. New-car sales dipped 3% to 3,008, and it sold 2,905 used cars, up 9.4%. It added employment by two to 149.
• Sales at No. 3, Toyota of Orange, were also flat at $338 million. It sold 8,500 new cars, down 2.5%, but used car sales rose 10.2% to 1,938. It employed 161 sales and service personnel, up from 148.
• The biggest list gainer was Subaru Orange Coast, 32nd, also owned by Penske Automotive.
The dealership reported sales of $41.4 million, up 73.7%. Sales of new vehicles grew 60.7% to 1,096, and it sold 181 used vehicles, more than double last year’s figure. It also added two employees, bringing its workforce of sales and service personnel to 27.
Automakers
The seven automakers with U.S. operations in OC swelled their ranks by 12.8% to employ 2,764 local workers as of last month. They sold 4.2 million cars nationwide for the 12-month period ended June 30, flat from a year earlier.
• No. 1, Irvine-based Karma Automotive LLC, added more than 200 employees, bringing its local workforce to 800, the biggest worker addition of automakers on the list.
The luxury car company shows no sign of stopping, as it still had several job openings posted on its website, nearly 50 of them in Irvine across various sectors, from public relations to IT. The company estimated vehicle sales of 450 for the year but declined to disclose 2017 sales. It started delivering the limited-edition Aliso Edition, starting at $145,000, this month.
• Mazda North American Operations in Irvine moved up one spot to second, growing its local workforce by 14.8% to 544. It declined to report vehicle sales. Mazda has been strengthening its U.S. dealer network, investing about $44 million in the second quarter toward a retail overhaul to help increase sales, which declined 5% in the third quarter to 106,000 units. The company also announced a new corporate strategy last month to take steps toward electrification and connectivity, such as introducing electric vehicles in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.
• Fountain Valley-based automaker Hyundai Motor America Inc. dropped to third, reporting 465 OC employees, down 5%. Vehicle sales declined by 9.8% to 674,243 units.
The automaker, which is in the middle of a reorganization of U.S. operations, has been facing headwinds, partly because of its slim SUV lineup at a period when consumer demand is high for larger vehicles. The industry average shows SUVs accounted for 63% of U.S. automakers’ 2017 sales, but Hyundai’s SUV sales made up 36% of its U.S. sales, according to data from research firm Autodata Corp. The automaker said it plans to “debut a total of eight new or re-engineered SUVs in the U.S. by 2020.”
