Jylpyz:
I don’t really buy the idea that new car sales would automatically be the most profitable area of the business. In recent years, new car sales have been very low-margin or even loss-making for many operators, as volume has been chased at any cost.
For example, Auto Bassadone’s revenue in 2025 was approximately 196 million euros, yet the result was still about five million euros in the red. Even the EBITDA was over two percent negative, so the situation cannot be explained by write-downs alone. Furthermore, the same group’s importing company, Auto-Bon, posted an even weaker result: revenue totaled 124 million euros, but the loss plummeted to over 10 million euros.
Länsiauto, on the other hand, managed to improve its profitability by giving up new car sales and focusing on maintenance services and the used car trade.
The flow of trade-in cars is certainly valuable, but if new cars are sold with practically zero margins or even at a loss, volume alone does not yet create shareholder value. What matters is the profitability of the entire value chain, not the number of new car registrations.
Additionally, chains that sell both new and used cars often face a structural problem. When new car salesmen are tasked with selling used cars, it is difficult for them to shift from a mindset based on unit sales to one based on margin sales. If a new car salesman is also allowed to price the trade-in car themselves, they might not even inspect the car on-site, but instead base the pricing solely on listings from Nettiauto. After this, management wonders about high post-sale costs and poor profitability.
In the used car trade, sales management and salesperson expertise play a decisive role in whether the business is profitable or not. As far as I know, there is no one on Wetteri’s management team with a strong background in the used car trade.
As for the extensive sales network, it also means high fixed costs. In my opinion, the network still contains too many small branches whose profitability is questionable.
Selling new cars isn’t automatically the most profitable segment, but it provides excellent trade-in cars for resale. The used car purchase market has overheated and there are no more quick wins there—that era was ten years ago. Now is the time to focus on core operations.
Bassadone is a poor point of comparison. They have very challenging brands, and their expertise in the used car business is not on the same level.
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