CHARLOTTE, N.C. -

Reporting its third quarter results this morning, Sonic Automotive said it saw increases in sales, earnings and revenue.

Highlighting its pre-owned results, Sonic’s used-vehicle retail unit sales were up 6.6 percent year-over-year. New-vehicle retail unit sales were up a significant 25.2 percent over the same quarter last year. Combined, total retail unit sales increased by 16.2 percent, the company shared.

Sonic came in at No. 4 on Auto Remarketing's Top 125 Used Car Dealer Groups ranked by 2011 used-vehicle sales, with 129,504 pre-owned sales. The full list can be viewed here.

The company's  executive vice president of operations Jeff Dyke said, "Our quarterly new retail vehicle unit volume of 33,737 units is the second highest level our complement of stores has ever achieved.  The record occurred in the third quarter of 2006 when the quarterly SAAR averaged 16.6 million units compared to the current SAAR of 14.5 million units. 

"We would like to thank our customers, our manufacturer partners and our associates for working together to help us achieve this performance. All the while, we were able to operate efficiently by controlling costs as evidenced by a 30 bps improvement in our SG&A to gross percentage to 77.6 percent from the prior year quarter,” he continued.

Also, the exec explained that tools like the company’s new inventory management system will potentially help drive used sales this coming year.

“We continue to leverage technology and data to improve our customers' experience in our stores and create value.  For example, our new SIMS (Sonic Inventory Management System) and Retail Trade Center Process will completely revolutionize the way we manage, price and retail inventory across our stores.  We anticipate completing the roll out of these systems in February of 2013 with the full benefits of the systems yielding results in the second quarter of 2013.  We believe this will be another catalyst in driving our pre-owned performance in 2013,” Dyke said.

The high sales seen in Q3 also contributed to adjusted earnings from continuing operations of $23.1 million, which marked a 14.9-percent increase over the prior year results. 

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations per diluted share increased 17.6 percent to $0.40, compared to $0.34 in the prior year quarter.

And total Q3 revenues were up 11.7 percent year-over-year.

Sonic president Scott Smith said, "We are pleased with our performance in the third quarter. Our operating performance stayed on track while we eliminated the last remnant of debt associated with our debt restructuring activities in 2009.  We believe we have positioned the company for continued success by eliminating a significant ownership dilution risk through repurchasing the remaining 5 percent Notes during the quarter.  This strategic action has simplified our capital structure and improved our debt profile by pushing our earliest public debt maturity back out to 2018."

Lastly, the company shared that parts and service gross profit was up 1.7 percent — up 3.3 percent when adjusted for selling days.

For a deeper look into Sonic’s pre-owned Q3 results, see Wednesday’s Auto Remarketing Today.