汽车经销商如何对冲行业下行周期
How Car Dealerships Hedge Against Downturns
The auto industry is highly cyclical, with plenty of booms and busts, but one group that seems to do pretty well, even in the worst of times is the car dealer. The coronavirus pandemic brought a surge in profits. Supplies were tight, demand pent up, and automakers were able to sell the highest margin cars, trucks and SUVs. Pretax profits tripled from where they were before the pandemic. Since then, they've fallen about 43%, still higher than 2019, but far from the pandemic peak.
汽车行业具有高度周期性，繁荣与衰退交替出现，但即使在最糟糕的时期，有一类群体似乎也表现相当不错，那就是汽车经销商。新冠疫情期间利润激增。供应紧张，需求被压抑，汽车制造商得以销售利润率最高的轿车、卡车和SUV。税前利润是疫情前的三倍。此后，利润下降了约43%，仍高于2019年，但远低于疫情峰值。
And fortunately for dealers, something that causes one side of their business to suffer, such as a dip in new vehicle sales can cause another to thrive. About half of dealers profits come from parts and service. Those profits have soared. It's a very hedged business model. What happens when folks aren't buying as many new cars, they're servicing their cars. If you lose $10 of new vehicle revenue, you only have to pick up $1 of service to have your gross margin remain flat.
对经销商来说幸运的是，导致其业务某一方面受损的因素，比如新车销量下滑，可能使另一方面蓬勃发展。经销商约一半的利润来自零部件和服务。这些利润飙升。这是一种高度对冲的商业模式。当人们不买那么多新车时，他们就会维修自己的车。如果你损失了10美元的新车收入，只需增加1美元的服务收入，就能保持毛利率持平。
It's 5% new car margin, 50% service margin. The dealers, they kind of win either way. Now, all of a sudden, you've seen demand for used cars growing faster than new cars. And service and parts is growing faster than both. Here's a breakdown of what this roughly can look like for one major publicly-traded dealership group. Parts and service was 15% of Asbury's revenue in the first six months of 2026, but it was half the profits.
新车利润率是5%，服务利润率是50%。经销商无论怎样都能赢。现在，突然之间，二手车需求增长快于新车。而服务和零部件的增长比两者都快。以下是一家大型上市经销商集团的大致情况。2026年前六个月，零部件和服务占Asbury收入的15%，但占利润的一半。
Another profitable side of the business is finance and insurance. Look here again: only 4% of Asbury's revenue, but nearly a quarter of profits. I do think there's true value in some of these products, you know, as much as people poo-poo them. Bumper-to-bumper warranty. If you're spending $50,000 on a new car, a lot of people don't feel comfortable leaving that fully exposed. This is what dealers are banking on. A midyear survey showed that 80% of them expected parts and service to be a top profit driver.
另一个盈利的业务方面是金融和保险。再看这里：仅占Asbury收入的4%，却占利润的近四分之一。我确实认为这些产品中有一些具有真正的价值，尽管很多人对此嗤之以鼻。全面保修。如果你花5万美元买一辆新车，很多人不放心让它完全暴露在风险中。这正是经销商所依赖的。一项年中调查显示，80%的经销商预计零部件和服务将成为主要的利润驱动力。
Nearly 60% said F and I. On the service side, there are even a few longer term tailwinds to watch. One of them might be EVs. It might seem counterintuitive. One of the arguments for EVs is that they require less maintenance. There is a lot of truth to that. They have simple powertrains, require no oil changes, and so on. But things do break. And when they do, Asbury said the average repair order for an EV is far higher than that for an internal combustion vehicle, even though they for now, make up a smaller share of vehicles sold.
近60%的人说是金融和保险。在服务方面，甚至还有一些长期利好因素值得关注。其中之一可能是电动汽车。这似乎有悖常理。电动汽车的一个论点是它们需要更少的维护。这确实有道理。它们动力系统简单，无需更换机油等等。但东西确实会坏。而当它们坏了时，Asbury表示，电动汽车的平均维修订单远高于内燃机汽车，尽管目前它们在售出车辆中占比较小。
So historically, these levers are what have kept dealers profitable even when automakers and suppliers have gone bankrupt. Even in the depths of the great financial crisis, the average dealership remained profitable and had a return on equity of 10%. While parts and service are profitable and growing. There are potential threats. Auto service chains are grabbing a bigger share of the service pie, given how important parts and service are for dealers' bottom line, Kerrigan Advisors said in a recent report that they should watch out.
因此，从历史上看，正是这些杠杆让经销商即使在汽车制造商和供应商破产时也能保持盈利。即便在严重金融危机期间，平均经销商仍保持盈利，股本回报率达到10%。而零部件和服务业务既盈利又在增长。但也存在潜在威胁。Kerrigan Advisors在最近的一份报告中指出，鉴于零部件和服务对经销商利润的重要性，汽车服务连锁店正在抢占更大的服务市场份额，经销商应予以警惕。
Some surveys indicate that customers tend to think dealers charge more for parts and service than other shops, even though some argue the evidence doesn't support that. The franchise dealers have come to realize the importance of service and parts. They are taking great effort to dispel that notion and try to become more competitive on pricing, in order to draw in and retain more of those service customers. So yeah, it's certainly not lost on them.
一些调查显示，顾客往往认为经销商在零部件和服务上的收费高于其他维修店，尽管有人认为证据并不支持这一观点。特许经销商已经意识到服务和零部件的重要性。他们正努力消除这种观念，并试图在定价上更具竞争力，以吸引和留住更多服务客户。所以，是的，他们对此并非无动于衷。
That's been borne out post-pandemic, right, to that point. They've all grown mid-single digits since Covid. And I think part of that is due to, one, elevated warranty and recalls, but also because of their efforts to become more competitive.
这一点在疫情后得到了印证，对吧。自新冠疫情以来，他们的业务都实现了中个位数的增长。我认为部分原因在于，一是保修和召回事件增多，二是他们为提升竞争力所做的努力。
更进一步：量化金融体系
看懂新闻只是起点——沿量化金融路径，把它变成能交付的工程能力