Sytner new car order bank has grown 23% to 31,800

Sytner, the UK’s largest dealer group, is sitting on an order bank of almost 32,000 vehicles, higher than it was a year ago.

Roger Penske, chairman and CEO of Penske Automotive Group, Sytner’s owner, said the UK was looking good.

“Demand for new vehicles remain strong and vehicle availability is improving. However, we do expect supply constraints to remain during 2023 for most of the brands in the premium side that we represent.

“We continue to take forward orders. In fact, in the UK, our forward order bank is 23% higher than it was at the same time last year, representing 31,800 units or £100m of forward gross profit,” he told analysts in a briefing call.

Overall, Penske reported a record performance in 2022 with full Year 2022 Revenue up 9% to $27.8bn and earnings before taxes up 16% to $1.9bn.

The UK accounted for 30.4% of total revenues compared to 31.2% in the prior year.

Penske said, “Our international diversified transportation services company produced record results in 2022.

“We retailed more than 447,000 new and used vehicles through our retail automotive operations and over 20,000 new and used commercial trucks through our commercial truck dealerships while our investment in Penske Transportation Solutions continues to benefit from the growth in its vehicle fleet.

“I am also pleased to report a strong fourth quarter driven by demand for new vehicles in both our automotive and commercial truck dealerships coupled with continued service and parts revenue growth and expense control.

“On a same-store basis, fourth quarter retail automotive new unit sales increased 11% and commercial truck new units increased 36% while service and parts revenue increased 6% for retail automotive and 16% for commercial trucks.”