Vroom reported strong revenue and vehicle sales growth in the second quarter along with a higher net loss as the online used-vehicle retailer continued to expand in the U.S.
The net loss widened 4.1 percent to $65.8 million. The loss included $22.6 million in one-time, IPO-related costs. Vroom went public in June 2020.
Shares of Vroom fell 13 percent to $33.05 in morning trading Thursday in New York.
Vroom was able to grow its salable inventory throughout the period, going from 11,280 vehicles listed at the end of the first quarter to 13,676 at the end of the second, the company said on a conference call Wednesday after releasing its report.
CEO Paul Hennessy said the company was able to grow those units in a “very constrained market” while improving unit economics, and he pointed to the firm’s acquisition of data analytics firm CarStory as having played a role in the operational improvements. “Our now combined data-driven team is buying the right cars at the right price and moving them quickly,” he said.
He also said that Vroom “importantly” has been able to “excel” at buying cars from consumers. The company sourced 65 percent of the vehicles it sold in the period from consumers, up from 54 percent in the first quarter, the CEO said.
Vroom is expanding its reconditioning capacity as it looks to further ramp up sales. It added five third-party reconditioning facilities in the second quarter and now has 29 total reconditioning facilities across the U.S., which Hennessy said means it’s tracking ahead of schedule for its plan to have 30 such sites by the end of this year. Its reconditioning capacity in the second quarter was an average of 2,800 vehicles per week, up from 2,300 in the first quarter, the CEO said.
Second-quarter revenue tripled to $761.9 million.
Online retail sales jumped 172 percent from the pandemic-stricken year-earlier period to 18,268 vehicles. The company expects online retail sales to reach 20,000 to 20,500 in the third quarter.
Gross profit jumped 730 percent over the hard-hit year-earlier quarter to $63.1 million. E-commerce gross profit was up 588 percent to $49.6 million.
E-commerce gross profit per vehicle rose 153 percent to $2,718. That metric includes Vroom’s vehicles as well as other products, such as finance and insurance. Per-vehicle gross profit was nearly $1,600, driven by a favorable pricing environment, consumer-sourced vehicles and improvement in the company’s pricing methodologies, CFO Dave Jones said.
Vroom, of New York City, ranks No. 14 on Automotive News‘ list of the top 100 retailers ranked by used-vehicle sales, retailing 41,873 used vehicles in 2020.
