Big 6 Dominate Top 150 Rankings as Size, Sales, Profits Grow
The “Big 6” publicly traded U.S. auto dealer groups are growing in size, sales and profitability as they hold onto the top positions in Automotive News’s annual ranking of the Top 150 Dealership Groups. In 2024, those retailers accounted for new highs of 33.7% of all new units sold by AN’s top 150 and 8.5% of all sales nationwide.
Lithia Motors remains No. 1 in AN’s rankings with 871,374 units sold by 459 dealerships last year, exceeding $36 billion in total group revenue from all departments, including F&I. AutoNation, Penske Automotive Group, Group 1 Automotive, Asbury Automotive Group and Sonic Automotive round out the top of the leaderboard.
AN’s editors and analysts say acquisitions and consolidation are helping the big groups get bigger, nearly doubling their share of new car dealerships between 2011 and 2024.
“The collective top 150 again boosted its percentage of ownership of the industry’s total dealerships, tallying 4,866 stores, or 26.6% of the nation’s estimated 18,311 franchised dealerships. In 2023, they owned 4,597 dealerships,” write AN’s Gail Kachadourian and Julie Walker. “That year, their ownership was as much as 25.3% of U.S. franchised dealerships; in 2011, it was just 13.9% of U.S. dealerships.”
