Dealership transaction volume occurred at a brisk pace in 2023. Presidio so far has tracked 351 transactions in the U.S. last year. That is preliminary and likely to rise as more deals are reported for 2023. If nothing changed, however, that would represent a 13 percent decline from the record 403 transactions in 2022, as reported by Automotive News. The transactions counted so far for 2023 involved 534 dealerships, down about 10 percent from the 596 stores that traded hands in 2022, according to Automotive News. As more deals are recorded for 2023, transaction pace could end up being on par with 2022. Either way, deal volume remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
At year-end 2023, there were 18,347 franchised dealerships in the U.S., according to Urban Science. Private dealers owned 94 percent of stores, while public consolidators held 6 percent. According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, 92 percent of U.S. dealers owned one to five franchised stores as of mid-2023.