The Audi franchise has come in for a hammering in the latest NFDA Dealer Attitude Survey when it comes to profitability.
Dealers of a range of franchises were asked to rate the current profit return from representing their franchise and Audi was the worst performing brand with a score of just 2 out of 10, a further decline on the 2.5 achieved last time.
DS in the Stellantis stable was the second worst performing franchise with a score of 2.4, followed by Ford on 3.9, Hyundai on 4.2 and Volkswagen on 4.3.
At the other end of the spectrum Kia was rated in first place for profit return with a score of 8.7, followed by Mercedes-Benz on 8.3. Mini and MG performed strongly in third place with a score of 7.7 each and Volvo and Lexus were on 7.3 apiece.
The overall profitability for dealers across was 6.2 I the current Winter 2025 Survey compared to 5.5 six months ago, a 12.7% swing.
The Winter 2025 edition of the survey was carried out over five weeks, from 27 January to 28 February 2025. In this edition, the survey garnered responses from an impressive 2,204 sites across 31 franchised networks, equating to a response rate of 61.3 percent.
The NFDA said the survey revealed a “decent increase” in overall current profit return, however it still remained among the lowest scoring questions, coming in second to last.
Topics related to profitability, Return on capital and margins were among the lowest rated in the survey.
Current profit return from representing your franchise was the second lowest scoring question in this edition of the survey but did increase by 12.7% in comparison to the last survey.
Dealer satisfaction with current profit return has gone up a significant 0.7 from the last edition, with an average score of 6.2, up from 5.5 in the last edition.
Assessing the trends from previous DAS surveys, dealer sentiment regarding current profit returns has broken the trend of decline since Winter 2022 and has seen a somewhat return to ‘normal’.