A closely watched metric, often ignored

<!–*/ */ /*–>*/

For a metric that’s so important, it sure doesn’t get much popular attention.

It’s called sales per franchise. The ranking is a key part of our annual dealer census, to be published in Monday’s issue.

There’s nothing fancy about it. It measures how many new vehicles are sold in the U.S. by the average franchise of a particular auto brand. As this year’s tally shows, the numbers are all over the map. Toyota is at the top, with 1,483. Exotic brands such as Aston Martin and Lamborghini typically fill out much of the bottom, this year in the 40- to 50-sales-per-franchise range.

And while the rankings don’t get much media focus, you can bet they’re closely watched inside corporate offices. For example, five of the six most-liked brands in the National Automobile Dealers Association Dealer Attitude Study for winter 2019 were among the top six in the Automotive News sales-per-franchise ranking released early that year. The other was Porsche. Enough said.

And remember when former BMW executive Wolfgang Reitzle was trying to put Ford Motor Co.’s Volvo, Lincoln, Jaguar and Land Rover brands under one roof? A key goal was to lift a bunch of sales-per-franchise also-rans into a collective powerhouse.

As for the main event of our annual census feature, there’s not much change. There were 18,263 new-car dealerships in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, a decline of just 54 after a year battered by pandemic.

That statistic has been rock steady – in the 17,000 and 18,000 range – for the past decade.

Before you place bets on that trend continuing, take a look at the figures in the image at the top of this newsletter. They’re from a special issue we published in 1996, marking the centennial of the U.S. auto industry. It shows 47,133 U.S. dealerships in 1941 — and relentless decline in the decades after.

— Dave Versical

Coming Monday in Automotive News:

Will General Motors find gold in the Amazon playbook? Operating regional warehouses to store products that can be quickly delivered to nearby customers: It sounds like Amazon, but the approach could soon be adopted by America’s largest automaker. General Motors is considering a centralized stock model for electric vehicles, starting with a regional pilot of 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV inventory pools later this year. GM hopes the logistics plan will reduce delivery time to showrooms and cut dealers’ floorplan costs. If it works, GM could reshape dealership operations without violating franchise laws. Automotive News talks with the automaker, dealers and retail analysts about the benefits and challenges inherent in the new strategy.

With Peugeot out of the U.S. picture, will Alfa Romeo find its footing? Automotive News speaks with U.S. Alfa Romeo dealers after a global leadership realignment, including the latest addition of Larry Dominique as North America boss. After the Italian luxury brand saw a modest sales uptick in the U.S. last year, do dealers feel that Stellantis is with them for the long haul?

Weekend headlines:

Microchip shortage hits Stellantis, Ford pickup plants: The semiconductor chip crisis will disrupt production at four more plants until March 29: Stellantis plants in Michigan and Mexico and Ford’s Ohio and Kentucky plants.

Group 1 grabs 2: The nation’s fourth-largest dealership group purchased two Toyota stores in Massachusetts from Prime Automotive as the company looks to boost acquisitions this year.

TrueCar teams with Navy Federal: The vehicle listings company launched a car-buying partnership with Navy Federal Credit Union in hopes of tapping the financial institution’s 10-million-strong membership.

A selection from Shift and Daily Drive:

March 21, 1869: Date of birth of Albert Kahn, an industrial architect whose factories turned Detroit into a manufacturing hub and the Arsenal of Democracy. He died in 1942 and was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2012.