“Dealership profit rebounds after 3 years of decline. Have earnings normalized even as tariff risk looms?”
The first quarter of 2025 marked a significant turning point for franchised auto dealers: After nearly three years of falling profits as auto retailing normalized from the heady returns of the early years of the coronavirus pandemic, the average dealership in the U.S. posted a meaningful gain in earnings, according to new data from the Presidio-NCM Average Dealership Performance Benchmark.
The average franchised store posted a 3.7% increase in net pretax profit for the first three months of 2025 compared with the first quarter of 2024. The improvement followed an essentially flat performance in the fourth quarter of 2024, in which the average store posted a 0.2% profit gain.
The uptick could indicate that dealership performance has stabilized after years of declining profitability and pandemic-induced volatility. But lasting stability will be tested by new uncertainties, namely, President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.