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Oct 31, 2023
Car-Mart Q2 2024 Earnings Report
Car-Mart's Q2 2024 results reflected the team's commitment to delivering value during a challenging economy, with revenue up 2.8% due to interest income, despite a 4.6% decrease in unit sales.
Key Takeaways
America's Car-Mart reported a 2.8% increase in revenue for Q2 2024, driven by higher interest income, although unit sales decreased by 4.6%. The company faced challenges due to the inflationary environment impacting customers and resulting in increased credit losses. Gross margin was a positive aspect of the quarter, and the company is focused on cost structure agility.
Revenue increased by 2.8%, primarily driven by a 23% increase in interest income and a 5.6% increase in average retail sales price, despite a 4.6% decrease in units sold.
Gross profit per unit improved to $6,835 compared to $6,132 in the prior year's second quarter due to inventory efficiencies.
Net charge-offs increased to 7.2% of average finance receivables, returning to pre-pandemic levels, influenced by both frequency and severity of losses.
The company increased the allowance for credit losses, resulting in a $28 million charge, reflecting economic pressure on subprime consumers.
Car-Mart
Car-Mart
Forward Guidance
The Company expects credit losses to decline as vehicle prices normalize and decrease over time. Management is addressing the credit loss increases through proactive risk management from both the vehicle aspect and the customer aspect as well as enhancing underwriting guidelines to improve the profile of the portfolio.
Positive Outlook
- The initial results were very positive, with down payments on LOS averaging 5.5% vs. 4.6% for deals originated within our legacy system.
- Similar improvements were seen related to originating terms lengths as those fell to approximately 42.0 months on LOS compared to approximately 44.0 months for deals originated in the legacy system.
- This drove average originating term downward to 44.1 months for the quarter, down from 44.7 months sequentially.
- Approximately 45% of sales at quarter-end are now being originated through our new LOS.
- Sequentially, our accounts 30+ days past due improved by 80 basis points as they dropped from 4.4% to 3.6%.
Challenges Ahead
- The persistent inflationary environment impacted existing customers, which was evident in our credit losses.
- We have experienced increases in both frequency and severity on some 2021/2022 pools as well.
- Overall website traffic was up YOY when looking at the number of unique visitors to our website. Online credit applications (OCAs) were also up YOY by 19%; however, conversions to sales declined in October.
- Sales for the quarter were 15,162 units vs. 15,885 units, down 4.6% vs. the prior year quarter.
- The Company increased the allowance for credit loss from 23.91% to 26.04% sequentially, resulting in a $28 million charge to the provision (basic earnings per share loss of $3.40 after tax).