Asbury Automotive Group (ABG) · Q3 2026

S1Our Overall Take

Asbury Automotive Group ran about 171 dealership locations across 15 states at the end of 2025, selling brands from Toyota and Honda to Lexus and Mercedes-Benz (management's own disclosure). In July 2025 it bought the Herb Chambers group of 33 dealerships around Boston. Our data follows what happens on its lots: how many cars sell, at what price, and how long they wait for a buyer. This report covers July through September 2026.

Comparable stores sold fewer cars than the market. At the stores Asbury had owned since before July 2025 and was still selling through this quarter, identified store by store from the seller records in Compass, new sales fell 9.7% and used sales 10.9%. The North American market fell 3.0% on new and 3.4% on used. Against the second quarter, on the zip-code panel used in earlier reports, same-store new sales fell 4.6% and used 3.7%, more than the market's seasonal dip.

But the quarter got better as it went. On the zip-code panel, which carries monthly detail, same-store new sales were down 11.2% in July, 8.0% in August and 2.1% in September. Used went from 14.6% down in July to 8.9% down in September. Management said it expected the third quarter to carry the heaviest dealership-software conversion work, with conversions complete by October.

The headline numbers overstate growth. All-store new sales rose 12.5% and used 6.5%, and vehicle revenue in our data rose 19.2% to $3.9 billion. Most of that is the Herb Chambers stores plus stores Asbury has owned for years that our data only began tagging to Asbury in late 2025. We do not read it as demand.

Pricing held up. New cars sold 2.0% below sticker against 4.0% a year ago, and the same-store new average transaction price rose 3.2%. That says nothing about profit per car, which our data cannot see.

The used lot is lean. Used stock stood at 13,570 cars at September 30, after setting aside 504 cars that had been listed more than 180 days at the same store, which we treat as service loaners (Section 12). Used Market Days Supply of 35 sits inside the typical range, and 6.2% of used stock had waited more than 90 days at its selling store.

Why cautiously bearish: the measure that best matches what Asbury will report as same-store volume is down on both sides of the lot and down more than the market, on both a yearly and a quarterly comparison. The September improvement keeps this from a full bearish read. Confidence is Medium because our counts run above Asbury's own reported units, and because the store-level panel read 1.0 point below the company's same-store new comparison and 2.3 points below its used comparison last quarter (Section 12).

S2The Quarter in Numbers

No share move reaches the 0.3-point level we treat as meaningful. The year-over-year rise in Asbury's share comes from the same tagging change that inflates its all-store units, not from a market event: the captured market fell over the same period.

S3Inventory and Pricing Risk

New Market Days Supply, the stock on hand divided by average daily sales over the 45 days to quarter-end, is 64 and sits inside the typical range for franchise dealers (46 to 80 days). Used Market Days Supply of 35 also sits inside its typical range (27 to 40 days), up from 27 a year ago as Asbury rebuilt its used stock on purpose. Used inventory figures throughout this report exclude cars listed more than 180 days at the same store, an interim rule for service loaners (Section 12); new figures are unfiltered.

The used lot aged a little over the quarter: used stock listed more than 90 days at its selling store rose to 6.2% from 3.8% at June 30. That is still a lean lot by market standards. In every major brand, Asbury carries 19% to 35% less used supply than franchise dealers overall (Section 7). Both asking premiums are below our 10% watch line.

S4Electric Vehicles, Geography, and the Two Cases

Electric vehicles. New battery-electric sales fell 68.2% to 1,146, and the fully electric share of new sales fell to 2.1% from 7.5%. The federal purchase credit ended on September 30, 2025 and pulled sales into the year-ago quarter; the whole market's new battery-electric sales fell 52.6%, so Asbury fell faster. Used battery-electric sales rose 30.2% to 1,066 against 11.9% for the market.

Geography. Florida, Asbury's largest state, fell 6.7% on new. Colorado, Utah and Maryland new sales each fell more than 20%, mostly where Asbury sold stores during 2025 and early 2026. Massachusetts and Texas growth is mostly the tagging change described in Section 3.

The positive case. The decline was shrinking month by month, and September same-store new sales were close to flat. Pricing held closer to sticker, and the used lot is lean against the market, with 6.2% of used stock over 90 days on site, with room for the volume push management guided to from the fourth quarter.

The negative case. Same-store sales trailed the market on both sides of the lot, and the gap shows against the second quarter as well as a year ago. Asbury discounts its used cars from their first asking price more often and more deeply than franchise dealers overall, and that discount deepened through the quarter.

01Overall Verdict and Confidence

This is a read on Asbury's North American vehicle-selling business only, not a rating on the company. Finance & Insurance income, the Total Care Auto business, parts and service, and collision are outside our data, and so is the gross profit Asbury earns on each car.

Why cautiously bearish: volume at comparable stores fell more than the market, on both new and used, and on both a yearly and a quarterly comparison. Same-store new sales fell 9.7% against a market down 3.0%; same-store used fell 10.9% against a market down 3.4%. Against the second quarter, on the zip-code panel used in earlier drafts, same-store new fell 4.6% and used 3.7%, against a market down 2.2% and 1.8%. The positive evidence is real but smaller: the decline narrowed each month, new cars sold closer to sticker, and the used lot is lean.

Confidence is Medium. Our counts run above Asbury's reported units, and the excess grew over the past year (Section 12). The same-store figure is now built store by store from the seller records carried in Compass; on the second quarter, where the company's figures are known, that panel read 1.0 point below Asbury's same-store new change and 2.3 points below its used change. The direction does not change on any panel we have built: every same-store version, store-level or zip-code, is below the market.

02Signal Summary Table

03Detailed Sales Numbers

Why it matters: units sold times average price is a direct shadow of the vehicle revenue Asbury will report. Asbury bought 33 dealerships in July 2025 and sold 10 locations in the first half of 2026, so same-store figures lead here. This quarter they compare stores, using the seller records carried in Compass, rather than zip codes. The all-store figure is the revenue base.

Same-store sales: the lead read

The store-level panel reads −9.7% on new and −10.9% on used. The zip-code panel used in earlier drafts read −7.3% to −9.4% on new and −13.6% to −18.8% on used, so the change of method moves new toward the bottom of that range and used above its top; the direction against the market is unchanged on either method. Against the second quarter, on the zip-code panel, new sales fell 4.6% and used 3.7%; the store-level panel has not yet been cut by month or by quarter-on-quarter.

The monthly path improved. Monthly detail is read on the zip-code panel (central estimate), which is the only panel we have cut by month.

By segment (new, zip-code panel). Domestic brands fell 19.0%, luxury 7.7% and import brands 2.9%. Asbury reported a similar order for the second quarter: domestic −16%, luxury −10% and imports flat (management's own disclosure).

How the same-store figure is built. Using the seller records carried in Compass, each sale is tied to the website of the store that sold it, and a store counts as comparable when Asbury had been selling through it since before July 1, 2025 and it was still selling in the quarter just ended: 118 stores, carrying 76.0% of Asbury's new sales and 75.1% of its used sales this quarter. Forty-nine stores whose first Asbury sales in our data came after that date contributed 9,551 new and 6,929 used units this quarter with no year-ago equivalent. Most of them are the Herb Chambers stores in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which Asbury bought on July 21, 2025 (management's own disclosure) and which first appear under Asbury in our data in December 2025 (Massachusetts alone 10,986 units this quarter); the rest are stores Asbury has owned for years that our data tagged to Asbury only from December 2025, led by Park Place Lexus Plano in Texas (2,025 units) and Hare Chevrolet and Hare Honda in Indiana (2,062 units between them), plus a few later additions such as Mercedes-Benz of Lynnfield from January 2026 and Bella Nissan of Union City in Georgia from February 2026. Whether a store's December 2025 first appearance is a purchase or a change in how Compass attributes its sales, it is outside the panel either way, so the same-store figure is unaffected by the distinction. Twenty-two stores that sold a year ago but not this quarter, among them Plaza Motor Company in Missouri, Volvo Cars Greenville and Crown Nissan Greenville in South Carolina, Mike Shaw Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Colorado, Bill Estes Chevrolet in Indiana and the Larry H. Miller Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram and Lexus stores in Utah, carried 2,128 new and 2,287 used units in the year-ago quarter; they line up with the 10 locations Asbury sold in the first half of 2026 and the stores it sold during 2025. Stores whose volume swung more than fourfold between the two quarters (Koons Tysons Toyota, Mike Rezi Nissan Atlanta and the Coggin Automotive Group record, 1,410 new and 715 used units this quarter against a few dozen a year ago) were left out of both quarters, as were six stores that had sold before July 2025, had no sales in the year-ago quarter and reappeared this quarter (2,037 new and 1,610 used units). Twenty-six websites that were re-platformed or renamed during the year, the St. Louis Plaza stores and the Greenville Porsche and Jaguar stores among them, were matched to their predecessor by seller name or by store zip code and brand and kept as one store each.

A small share of Asbury's sales is recorded under a group-level website rather than a store's own. Those sales carry the zip code of the store that sold the car and are counted with that store, so a sale moving between a store's website and the group-level record does not change the same-store total; the few that match no store form one unit counted in both quarters (63 new and 316 used this quarter). Within the comparable stores, sales recorded on the stores' own websites fell 11.2% on new and 17.0% on used while sales recorded under the group-level record rose from a handful a year ago (9 new and 3 used) to 663 new and 2,004 used, which is a change in which record Compass credits with the sale rather than demand (our interpretation).

Why same-store and all-store differ by about 20 points. Same-store new is −9.7% against all-store +12.5%, and used −10.9% against +6.5%. The gap comes from the Chambers acquisition and the late tagging of long-owned stores, which together added 16,480 units this year against the 4,415 the departed stores carried a year ago. A gap this size passes our check that the panel has not leaked acquired stores. Store-level same-store approximation built from Compass seller identifiers, not the company's certified same-store comparison; stores acquired part-way through the year-ago quarter can add partial-period noise.

All stores

The all-store average new price rose $2,882 from a year ago. About $1,378 of that came from higher prices within the same brands and about $1,504 from brand mix, mostly more Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz through the Chambers and Park Place stores. The used average price rose $2,594: about $1,667 within brands and about $927 from mix (our interpretation of the brand-by-brand calculation). Asbury's used buyers moved up the price ladder: cars under $20,000 were 26.1% of used sales against 31.7% a year ago, and luxury brands rose to 28.9% from 23.2%.

By state

Massachusetts and Texas are mostly attribution changes, not demand. Florida, the largest state, fell 6.7% on new. The Colorado, Utah and Maryland declines line up with stores Asbury sold in 2025 and early 2026.

04Top Brands Sold

Why it matters: Toyota alone is about a third of Asbury's new sales, so a handful of brands drive its volume and prices. Brand-level changes include the acquisition and tagging effects in Section 3.

New

Toyota is 34.2% of new units and sells in about a month on site at slightly above sticker. Its share of the captured Toyota market rose from 2.0% to 2.2%. Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz growth is mostly the Chambers and Park Place stores. Hyundai fell 27.6% and took nearly four months on site to sell, and Ford, Nissan and the Stellantis brands sold furthest below sticker.

Used

Toyota, Honda and Lexus used cars sold in under four weeks on site.

05What's Sitting on the Lots (Inventory)

Why it matters: a car that sits costs the dealer interest every day, and its eventual selling price tends to drift down. A growing pile of older stock is tomorrow's clearance problem.

Used: rebuilt on purpose, now aging slightly. Active used units are 39.4% above a year ago, but much of that is the Chambers and newly tagged stores, which were missing from the year-ago snapshot. Against June 30, on the same tagging, used stock rose 3.1% and the share over 90 days on site rose from 3.8% to 6.2%. 62.1% of used stock had been listed 30 days or less at its selling store, against 67.0% at June 30. The aging is in mainstream stock, where the over-90-day share rose to 5.8% from 4.1% a year ago; luxury cars, 29.2% of used stock, had 7.1% over 90 days on site against 8.0% a year ago. These figures exclude 504 cars listed more than 180 days at the same store; on the unfiltered lot the over-90-day share on site would be 9.6% (Section 12).

New: steady in total, older in luxury and domestic brands. New stock fell 1.4% from June 30, and the share over 90 days on site fell from 30.9% to 28.3%, though it is above the 25.1% of a year ago. Luxury new stock aged most: 34.0% over 90 days on site against 24.3% a year ago, led by Mercedes-Benz (3,222 cars, 36.5% against 19.4%) and BMW (46.2%); among mainstream brands Jeep (49.5%), Ram (47.9%), Nissan (39.9%) and Hyundai (36.5%) carry the oldest stock, while Toyota (6.1%) and Lexus (6.4%) turn in weeks. The sport-utility share of stock is about 57% for new cars, and 52.7% of the new lot is priced above $50,000.

06Price Position: Sticker, Asking Premium and Discounts

Why it matters: these measures show where Asbury prices its cars against the sticker, against what its sold cars fetched, and against its own first asking price. None of them is a profit measure: they say nothing about what Asbury paid for a car or earned on it.

New, against sticker. New cars sold 2.0% below the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP, the "sticker"), against 4.0% a year ago and 2.4% last quarter. Toyota, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz sold at or slightly above sticker; Nissan (−9.0%), RAM (−8.7%), Jeep (−7.9%) and Ford (−7.7%) sold furthest below. Prices compared across the March–May 2026 period are affected by franchise dealers moving mandatory fees into advertised prices from spring 2026, following FTC enforcement; part of the change is how prices are advertised rather than what buyers pay, and the size of that part is not estimated.

Asking premium on unsold stock. This compares the average list price of cars still for sale at September 30 with the average price of cars sold during the quarter. The two groups are different cars, so the trend matters more than the level.

Both are below our 10% watch line. The used premium narrowed sharply because unsold used stock is now priced much closer to what Asbury's used cars sell for. The used figures exclude cars listed more than 180 days at the same store (Section 12); on the unfiltered lot the used premium would be 8.1%.

Discount from first listed price. This compares each sold car's final price with the first price MarketCheck saw on its listing.

Asbury discounts more of its used cars from their first ask than franchise dealers overall, about level with a year ago. The change is against the second quarter: the share discounted rose from 61.0% to 70.8% and the average discount deepened from −2.9% to −4.2%. Month by month, the average went from −3.8% in July to −4.3% in August and −4.6% in September. On new cars, the average discount from first ask was −1.3%, against −2.4% a year ago and −1.8% for franchise dealers.

6dListing Price Position (used)

Listing Price Position compares each used car's opening asking price with MarketCheck Price, MarketCheck's model estimate of the car's market value. A ratio of 1.00 means listed at our estimate of market value; 1.05 means 5% above.

Asbury opens its used listings a little above franchise dealers, and further above than a year ago: a median position of +0.012 against +0.002. More of its cars were listed well above market value (41.6% against 35.9%). Its cars still sell faster than franchise dealers', with 63.7% sold within 30 days on site against 55.8%, though both slowed. Opening higher and then discounting more often fits the discount pattern above. This section is descriptive and does not feed the signal.

6eSelling Margin Pressure (used)

Selling Margin Pressure measures markdowns beyond the usual on cars that took longer than usual to sell. For each price band and vehicle age, Asbury's own previous 12 months set the usual time to sell and the usual markdown on cars that sold on time. A car counts when it took longer than usual and was marked down by more than usual; the excess, in dollars, is averaged over all used cars sold.

Asbury's Selling Margin Pressure was $1,186 per used car sold, up $89 from a year ago, against a rise of $3 for franchise dealers. Against the second quarter it rose from $810, as the market's did ($805 to $1,050). This describes selling behavior only. What Asbury paid for its cars and spent reconditioning them are not in our data, so the measure is not a gross profit figure and does not feed the signal.

07Days to Sell and Market Days Supply

7aDays on Site and Days on Market (how long each car takes)

Two clocks run on every car in our data. Days on site counts only the days at the current selling store or website and restarts whenever the car moves; it is the clock a store manages its own pricing and markdowns against, and it is the aging measure this report leads with in every section. Days on market counts from the first day the car was advertised anywhere and keeps counting if the car moves to another store or another website; it is the listing's full exposure to the market. Both are shown for cars sold during the quarter and for cars still unsold on September 30.

On the days-on-site clock, new cars that sold were two days younger than a year ago (60 against 62) and level with June. Used cars that sold took two days longer than a year ago (28 against 26) and four days longer than in June, consistent with the larger used lot. The unsold new stock is five days older on site than a year ago but four days younger than in June; the unsold used stock is two days older than a year ago and five days older than in June, after setting aside the cars listed more than 180 days at the same store (Section 12). The days-on-market rows tell the same story with slightly larger numbers: new cars sold three days faster than a year ago and used one day slower, and the unsold stock aged seven days on new and four on used over the year.

What the gap between the two clocks tells us. Days on site runs below days on market by about four days on new cars sold and three on used, and by about five days on the unsold stock of both kinds. 18.5% of the new and 23.7% of the used cars Asbury sold this quarter were younger on their selling site than on the market, shares that sit in the middle of the eight dealer groups we cover, well below Lithia's and above Carvana's near-zero. Physical movement between Asbury's stores explains little of it: only 0.03% of the new cars and 0.32% of the used cars on Asbury's lots at September 30 had changed selling store within their listing, and only 0.4% of new and 0.8% of used sales were followed by the same car reappearing at another Asbury store within 60 days (0.2% and 1.7% reappeared at a dealer outside the group). Nor is it the group-level website: cars sold under that record were younger on site than on the market only 2.3% of the time on new and 7.4% on used, against 18.8% and 24.9% for cars sold from store websites. Instead the gap is present from the first day a car is observed: 11.7% of the new and 18.5% of the used cars on the lot at September 30 were already younger on site than on the market when first seen, which means they had been advertised somewhere else before reaching the Asbury store that sold them, most plausibly an auction or wholesale listing, a trade from another dealer or, on used cars, a lease return listed by its prior seller (our interpretation). A further 4.7% of new and 6.2% of used stock restarted the site clock without a visible change of store, which Compass records as a new site listing and cannot explain further. Days on site is the clock this report leads with because it is the one Asbury's stores price and mark down against; days on market, which those earlier listings lengthen, is the car's full market exposure and is analyzed in this section only.

7bMarket Days Supply (how long the whole lot would last)

Market Days Supply divides the cars on hand at September 30 by the average number sold per day in the 45 days ending that day (August 17 to September 30). The year-ago and prior-quarter figures use the same 45-day window to their own quarter-ends.

New Market Days Supply of 64 sits inside the typical range for franchise dealers (46 to 80 days). New-vehicle Market Days Supply counts every advertised unit, including units advertised before they reach the dealership; company-reported figures count stock on the lot and are not directly comparable. Used Market Days Supply of 35 sits inside its typical range (27 to 40 days), up 8 days from a year ago and 3 days from June 30. Used stock here excludes cars listed more than 180 days at the same store (Section 12); on the unfiltered lot the figure would be 36.

Coherence check. Sold days on site divided by Market Days Supply is 93% for new and 77% for used, against the ranges in which the two normally sit, 62% to 100% for new and 76% to 114% for used, derived on sold days on site over complete quarters since 2023; both sit inside their ranges. The used ratio is taken on the unfiltered lot (Market Days Supply 36 rather than 35), because the service-loaner exclusion does not enter benchmark comparisons. On the days-on-market clock the ratios are 100% for new and 86% for used against ranges of 69% to 108% and 82% to 124%, inside their ranges, so the inventory and sales figures agree with each other on both clocks.

Against franchise dealers, brand by brand. Each figure shows Asbury's Market Days Supply for a brand as a percentage of the benchmark across all franchise dealers of the same brand, at the same date and on the same 45-day window. 100% means Asbury is in line with franchise dealers of the same makes; below 100% means it carries less supply than they do.

Asbury carries less used supply than franchise dealers in every major brand, so its used build starts from a lean position. On new, it runs below franchise dealers everywhere except Toyota, where it is level. The used figures exclude the same long-listed cars as the rest of the used inventory, while the franchise benchmark does not; before the exclusion the used ratios ran one to three points higher.

08Electric Vehicle Sales

Why it matters: the federal electric-vehicle purchase credit ended on September 30, 2025, so buyers pulled purchases into the year-ago quarter. Year-over-year comparisons are against an inflated base.

New fully electric sales fell 68.2%, faster than the market's 52.6%, and Asbury's share of the market's new battery-electric sales slipped from 1.4% to 0.9%. The new electric cars that did sell took nearly four months. Hyundai (284) and Toyota (247) led its new electric sales. Used fully electric sales rose 30.2% while the market's rose 11.9%, led by Tesla (235), and sold faster than a year ago. Management said off-lease electric vehicles were arriving and retailing well (management's own disclosure).

09The Positive Case

The decline was shrinking. On the zip-code panel, same-store new sales went from 11.2% down in July to 2.1% down in September, and used from 14.6% down to 8.9% down. Management expected the third quarter to carry the heaviest dealership-software conversion work and the remaining stores to convert by October; a business finishing that work could recover volume from here (our interpretation).

Pricing held. New cars sold 2.0% below sticker against 4.0% a year ago, and the same-store new average transaction price rose 3.2%. Toyota, a third of new sales, sold at slightly above sticker in about a month on site.

The used lot is lean and ready for the volume push. Asbury carries 19% to 35% less used supply than franchise dealers in every major brand, only 6.2% of its used stock had waited more than 90 days at its selling store, and its used cars still sell faster than the franchise average (63.7% within 30 days on site against 55.8%). Management guided to higher used volume from the fourth quarter (management's own disclosure).

10The Negative Case

Comparable stores lost ground to the market on both sides of the lot. Same-store new sales fell 9.7% and used 10.9%, against market declines of 3.0% and 3.4%. The loss also shows against the second quarter, on the zip-code panel: new −4.6% and used −3.7%, against market declines of 2.2% and 1.8%.

Domestic brands are the weakest part of the new business, down about 19% at comparable stores on the zip-code panel, and Stellantis brands are still selling slowly and far below sticker: Jeep and RAM new cars took about four months on site to sell, about half of the Jeep and Ram stock on hand had waited more than 90 days at its store, and both sold about 8% below sticker.

Used cars are being cut more. The share of used cars sold below their first asking price rose from 61.0% in the second quarter to 70.8%, and the average discount from first ask deepened each month to −4.6% in September. Franchise dealers overall discounted 59.4% of their used cars, by −2.8% on average. Our data cannot say what that does to used profit per car.

11ADid Management Get It Right Last Quarter?

Sources: Asbury Automotive Group Q2 2026 earnings call transcript (July 28, 2026) and Q2 2026 Form 10-Q (quarterly report). "Fact" claims describe the prior quarter; "Guidance" claims describe this one.

The day-supply claims check out. The tension is between the guided recovery and a third quarter in which comparable-store volume still trailed the market; the monthly improvement is the evidence on management's side.

11BWhat to Watch on the Earnings Call

1. The same-store bridge. Our store-level same-store figures are −9.7% for new and −10.9% for used, with 118 comparable stores, 49 added and 22 departed over the year. Does Asbury's reported same-store comparison land near them? On the second quarter the same panel read 1.0 point below the company on new and 2.3 points below on used, so a reported figure a point or two better than ours would not surprise us.
2. September and October momentum. Same-store new sales were nearly flat by September. Does management describe the software conversion as complete, and has October continued the improvement?
3. The used volume push and its price. Used stock rose 3.1% over the quarter, after setting aside cars listed more than 180 days at the same store, and Asbury discounted more of its used cars from first ask. Management priced the trade-off at about $200 to $250 per car for every additional 500 units. How did used gross profit per car, which our data cannot see, hold up?
4. Stellantis and domestic brands. Domestic new sales fell about 19% at comparable stores. Has the Stellantis inventory been cleared, and what does management expect for domestic volume?
5. Unseen lines in either direction. Total Care Auto's non-cash deferral, parts and service, the tax rate and buybacks moved the second-quarter result more than vehicle sales did. Any of them can reverse the sign of this signal at the earnings line.
6. Cars that arrive with a history. About a fifth of the used cars on Asbury's lots had been advertised elsewhere before reaching the store that sells them (Section 7a). How much of Asbury's used sourcing now comes from auction and off-lease channels rather than trade-ins, and does that stock turn as fast as the trade-in stock?

11CPost-Print Accuracy Summary (Asbury Q3 2026 Results, October 27, 2026)

What this section is: This section was added after Asbury Automotive Group reported Q3 2026 results on October 27, 2026. Everything above it is the report as written, unchanged.

Scorecard: Of 27 vehicle-transaction calls that could be tested against what Asbury reported, 17 were confirmed, 7 were partly right and 3 were missed. Another 4 could not be tested: Asbury gives no monthly figures, so the month-by-month improvement into September could not be checked; it publishes no supply figures by brand against other dealers; and two calls concerned the fourth quarter and profit per car, which the report had already said our data could not show. The Cautiously Bearish verdict was right: at stores owned in both years, Asbury’s new units fell 8.4% and used 5.9%, against a market down 3.0% and 3.4% in our data (all stores: new −9.0%, used −8.3%). New-vehicle gross profit fell 19.9% and new gross profit per unit (GPU) fell 12.0% to $2,949, while used GPU rose 9.6% to $1,788. Revenue fell 8.1% to $4.4 billion, and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) were $6.16 against $7.17 a year earlier; finance and insurance, the Total Care Auto service-contract business, parts and service and overhead, which sit outside vehicle transactions in our data, were all drags as well.

What we got right: The verdict rested on Asbury’s same-store sales falling further than the market on both new and used, and they did. Our same-store new reading of −9.7% landed within the point or two of the company’s −8.4% that the report told readers to expect, and vehicle revenue built from our same-store units and prices fell 6.9% against the company’s 6.6%. The report did not read our all-store growth (new +12.5%, used +6.5%) as demand, because it came from the Herb Chambers stores and from long-owned stores our data began linking to Asbury in late 2025; Asbury’s all-store units fell 9.0% and 8.3%. Electric vehicles were read exactly: 2.1% of new sales in our data and 2.1% of Asbury’s units, with management saying the electric-vehicle drop accounted for 5 of the 8 points of its same-store new decline. New supply fell on the year and held level with June on both our measure and Asbury’s. The questions for the call were well aimed: used GPU rose 9.6% as Asbury pushed volume, management put auction sourcing at 15% to 20% of used retail against the fifth we saw advertised elsewhere first, and Asbury cut about 1,000 units of Stellantis stock. The report held finance and insurance, the Total Care Auto deferral, parts and service and overhead as able to move the result either way; all of them were drags.

What we missed and why: Three calls were wrong. First, Pricing Power was the one lens above Neutral, resting on a narrower gap to sticker and a 3.2% rise in our same-store new average price; Asbury’s average new selling price was flat, new GPU fell 12.0% and new gross margin fell 0.7 points. Our price is the advertised price, which from spring 2026 began to include dealer fees after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement, a step of about 1.1 points on the new price-to-sticker ratio, so up to half of the narrowing may reflect how prices are advertised; that note sat in Section 6 but should have sat beside the summary price figures and the positive case. Asbury said fees were already included by state law in Georgia, Colorado and Massachusetts. Second, deeper used discounting was given bearish weight, but used GPU rose 9.6%; management said it moved in May toward more used volume while protecting profit. A discount measure shows how a dealer priced, not whether it made money doing so. Third, the report said the weakness also showed against the second quarter; Asbury’s new units slipped only 1.2% and used rose 4.5%, both better than the market. Those sequential figures came from the zip-code comparison rather than the store-level one and should have carried less weight. The used lot was also called lean on a comparison with franchise dealers, while on Asbury’s own history it grew, to 41 days’ supply from 35, and Section 11A marked our June used supply reading as confirming management’s 37 days when it ran well below it. Our same-store used decline ran 5.0 points steeper than the company’s; part of that is that Asbury counts the Herb Chambers stores in its same-store figures from their first full month of ownership, and ours did not include them. Domestic brands were the weakest segment, as called, but fell 12.9% rather than about 19%. Separately, our unit counts ran above Asbury’s reported units, by about 24% on new and 8% on used, so changes in our counts should be read against Asbury’s own figures. Our data also put Toyota at 34.2% of Asbury’s new sales, while Asbury’s release puts Toyota at 21% of new-vehicle revenue, so brand-weighted readings overstated Toyota.

Bottom line: Read this report for the direction of same-store volume against the market, revenue direction, new supply and electric vehicles, which held up. Treat its new-pricing read, its used-discount read and its sequential read with caution, and read our Asbury unit counts and Toyota weighting only beside the company’s own figures.

12Methodology and Glossary

Where the data comes from

Primary data source: MarketCheck Compass parquet files were the primary data source: North American new and used retail sales and the daily inventory panel, filtered to Asbury's dealer-group ticker. Sales cover July–September 2026 (current quarter), April–June 2026 (prior quarter) and July–September 2025 (year-ago quarter). The inventory snapshot is September 30, 2026, the true quarter-end; the data run through at least October 9, 2026. Geographic figures reflect the physical location of the vehicle.

Compass totals, Q3 2026: new 54,296 units and $2.8B; used 37,244 units and $1.1B; combined $3.9B.

Basis line. Inventory basis: Compass panel for unit counts, list prices and Market Days Supply. Aging basis: days on site leads every aging figure in this report (Sections 3, 4, 5, 6d, 9, 10 and 11); days on market is shown and analyzed in Section 7a only. Days on site: the Compass site counter, re-anchored at each observed reset. Sold and active days on market: measured from the opportunity start date. The over-90-day shares count cars with more than 90 days on site at the snapshot; on the days-on-market clock the same shares are 30.0% new and 8.7% used at September 30 (26.3% and 7.1% a year ago). Market Days Supply: active units at quarter-end divided by average daily sales over the 45 calendar days to quarter-end, August 17 to September 30, 2026 (ds_denominator = t45). Baselines installed October 19, 2026. Management's reported figure uses a one-month selling rate (the last 30 days or the calendar month) and counts stock on the lot; ours uses the 45 calendar days to quarter-end and counts every advertised unit, so the two are compared directly with that difference disclosed. New-vehicle Market Days Supply counts every advertised unit, including units advertised before they reach the dealership; company-reported figures count stock on the lot and are not directly comparable.

Market share denominator. Market share is computed against MarketCheck Compass-captured North American retail transactions for the same period, not against total US registrations or company-reported deliveries. Coverage of new-vehicle retail runs approximately 80–95% of the actual market and varies by brand, so these figures are a consistent relative measure across periods, not an absolute share of the true market.

Attribution change. The Herb Chambers stores, bought on July 21, 2025, were not tagged to Asbury in our data until December 2025, so our year-ago quarter holds only a few hundred of their sales. Several stores Asbury has owned for years in Texas, Indiana, Georgia and Virginia were tagged to Asbury only from about December 2025, and a corporate catch-all zip code moved from Asbury's old headquarters to its new one. All-store year-over-year changes in volume, revenue and share therefore overstate growth. The store-level same-store panel in Section 3 removes these effects by construction: a store whose first Asbury sale in our data came after July 1, 2025 is outside the panel whether it was bought or re-tagged.

Captured-basis reporting and the coverage record

Volume, revenue and share in this report are what MarketCheck captured, not the company's results.

These are the first unit-based coverage rates logged for Asbury. Compass counts a sale when a listing closes, so loaners, demonstrators and cars sent to auction can appear as sales (our educated guess; not decomposed for Asbury). The gap should be assumed to recur; its size should not be assumed.

Waiver disclosure 1: coverage above 1.00. Our counts tend to run above Asbury's reported retail units: 1.2 for new and 1.1 for used in Q2 2026, against 1.2 and 1.0 in Q2 2025. The excess is consistent with listing closures that are not retail deliveries, such as loaners, demonstrators and cars sent to auction (our educated guess; not decomposed for Asbury). It means our unit and revenue levels may overstate Asbury's reported retail figures. Unlike a stable excess, Asbury's grew between Q2 2025 and Q2 2026, by about 9 points on new and 7 on used, so year-over-year growth in our all-store figures is likely overstated as well; that is one reason the same-store figures lead this report.

Same-store panel against the company. On the store-level panel used in this report, our Q2 2026 same-store change was −7.5% for new and −15.9% for used, against Asbury's reported same-store −6.5% and −13.6% (Form 10-Q): new 1.0 point too low and used 2.3 points too low. Earlier drafts of this report published a zip-code range (central −7.3% new and −13.6% used, low end −9.4% and −18.8%); that method is superseded by the store-level panel, which compares what the company compares, stores, and is unaffected by sales moving between a store's website and the group-level record.

What our quality checks found

Same-store panel. Stores are identified by the Compass seller website; the dealer identifier was not usable across years because its numbering changed in January 2026. A store is comparable when its first Asbury sale in our data is on or before July 1, 2025 and it sold in the quarter just ended; stores first seen after that date are treated as acquired (or newly tagged), stores with no sales this quarter as departed, and both are left out. Stores whose volume moved more than fourfold between the two quarters, with at least 150 units in one of them, are left out of both, as are stores that sold before July 2025, had no year-ago-quarter sales and reappeared this quarter. Websites re-platformed or renamed during the year are matched to their predecessor by seller name within 45 days, or by store zip code and leading brand within 60 days. Sales recorded under Asbury's group-level website carry the selling store's zip code and take that store's status; the few that match no store form one unit counted in both quarters. The company's own same-store comparison is built store by store on its own ledger; our quarter-level rule approximates it. The monthly, quarter-on-quarter and segment same-store figures in Section 3 are still read on the zip-code panel of earlier drafts, which is the only panel cut that way.

Inventory snapshot date. September 30, 2026, the true quarter-end; Compass inventory quarter-end: 38,610 new and 14,074 used, of which 13,570 used after the service-loaner exclusion.

Days-on-site basis for sold within 30 days. The Section 6d speed figure counts used listings started at their selling store between the first day of the quarter and September 3, so that every listing could be followed for 30 days before the data edge. A listing is sold within 30 days when its sale record carries 30 or fewer days on site, and not sold when the car reached a 31st day on site in the inventory panel; listings that disappeared unsold before day 31 are in neither count. The franchise comparator is built the same way over all franchise dealers. This cohort is not the listing-day cohort used for the price-position figures above it.

Service-loaner exclusion (interim rule). Dealers keep some cars for service customers to drive and advertise them while they do, and those cars should not count as stock for sale. Pending a company-wide definition of a service loaner, every used inventory figure in this report (units, list prices, aging, asking premium, Market Days Supply and the brand-level supply comparison) excludes cars that had been listed more than 180 days at the same store on the snapshot date, read from the days-on-site counter. That removed 504 used cars at September 30, 417 at June 30 and 192 a year ago. The cars set aside are a mixed group that looks more like aged stock than a loaner fleet: at September 30 they averaged 298 days on market and a $38,964 list price, only 23.8% had under 10,000 miles, and the group averaged 63,158 miles. The used aging figures are correspondingly gentler than on the unfiltered lot (Active DOM 37 days against 46; over-90-day share on site 6.2% against 9.6%; Market Days Supply 35 against 36). New inventory is not filtered: the 4,577 new units over 180 days on site (11.9% of new stock) average 127 miles and 270 days on market and are aged stock, not loaners. Sold figures are unchanged.

Listing Price Position. Listing Price Position compares each used car's opening asking price with MarketCheck Price, MarketCheck's model estimate of the car's market value, at the listing's first recorded status change. It describes where the dealer set the price, not what the car sold for. Asbury's position of +0.012 is above its range for the four prior quarters (+0.002 to +0.004).

Directional read for grading. Asbury listed its used cars further above franchise dealers than a year ago (+0.012 against +0.002). Under the grading rule, that is logged as a read for higher used gross profit per car. It is recorded for the post-earnings accuracy review only and does not feed the signal.

Lenses. Selling Margin Pressure (Section 6e) is descriptive and does not feed the signal. Brand equity erosion is applied because Toyota is about a third of new sales.

What we cannot see

Outside MarketCheck's scope for Asbury: Finance & Insurance income and the Total Care Auto business, including its non-cash deferral; parts, service and collision work; wholesale and auction sales; gross profit per vehicle; overhead, including dealership-software conversion costs; the tax rate; share repurchases; and fleet sales not advertised at retail. In the second quarter these lines moved Asbury's earnings more than its vehicle sales did. They can push the reported result above or below what this signal suggests.

Sources of figures. Every figure in this report comes from MarketCheck data unless the text names another source, such as a company filing or management's comments on its earnings call. Only figures from those other sources carry a source label.

Plain-English Glossary

Prepared by MarketCheck Research using the Anthropic Claude LLM. This report describes North American retail vehicle transaction activity only and is not investment advice.

We welcome your feedback. To offer comments, suggestions for future coverage, or to inquire about licensing this report or the MarketCheck data behind it, including vehicle-level sales, inventory and pricing data, contact Bryant Sheehy at bryant.sheehy@marketcheck.com.