CarMax pops on Q1 earnings: The journey to catch up to Carvana

Yahoo

20-06-2025

CarMax (KMX) stock gains after reporting an earnings beat driven by strong demand for used vehicles. Wedbush Securities managing director of equity research Scott Devitt outlines the results and the used car retailer's efforts to catch up to Carvana (CVNA).
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CarMax is rising after topping first quarter expectations with sales rising nearly 6% from a year earlier boosted by strong demand for used vehicles. Joining me now, we've got Scott David, who is the Vedbush Security's managing director of equity research. Great to have you here with us. So, you have an outperform rating and a $90 price target on the stock. How are you looking at CarMax right now?
I thought it was a good quarter. You know, retail units were up 9%. Um, it was a record high gross profit dollar per unit. Um, so it was a good quarter. You know, this company is uh constantly playing catch up with Carvana. And um, I think Carvana is making it a better company, but it's a slow progression. You know, and they've shown some some signs here of strength. I think the asset long-term is mispriced favorably, but um, you know, but it but it's uh it's kind of a steady as she goes and they have to keep executing.
You know, we're continuing to look across this gross profit and and I wonder your evaluation of their gross profit and it did increase by 13% in the most recent quarter driven by higher unit volumes, strong unit margin performance here. But so much of this business is making sure that when they are purchasing cars as well that they're purchasing cars that are favorable enough for them to then be able to flip and add on that margin. What's your own assessment of the margin run rate that they're going to be able to achieve over time here and and grow to even get more shareholder value returned?
So what's happened in the past 12 months is that retail prices have been rising faster than wholesale prices, which is good for a retailer like CarMax because they capture that spread. I think what you're going to see potentially over the next 12 months is that um, that that gap tightening a little bit, which will be, you know, somewhat of a headwind, but from a sourcing standpoint and a scale standpoint, it's really kind of a two-player game. You know, 90% of this industry is sold by small mom and pop still. And CarMax and and particularly Carvana, you know, are consolidating the industry at the at the kind of head of the industry. Um, what's notable, you know, is within the next three years that Carvana is going to start to approach and potentially exceed CarMax units. So that'll be important to watch. I think both companies can win. Um, but there's one, you know, performing at an A+ level and and and that's Carvana. And I think, you know, CarMax is probably a BB+ right now and the rest of the industry is a C.