Shares of Lithia Motors Inc. hiked up 4.7% in premarket trading Wednesday, after the auto retailer reported earlier second-quarter profit that more than tripled and revenue that more than doubled to beat expectations by wide margins, amid strength in same-store used vehicle sales. Net income rose to $304.9 million, or $10.75 a share, from $77.7 million, or $3.38 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share of $11.12 beat the FactSet consensus of $6.17. Revenue increased 117.8% to $6.01 billion, well above the FactSet consensus of $5.08 billion. New vehicle retail revenue grew 130% to $3.15 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $2.50 billion, and used vehicle retail revenue rose 95.7% to $1.80 billion to be expectations of $1.52 billion. Same-store revenue growth was 20% for new vehicles and 49% for used vehicles. The stock has rallied 21.5% year to date through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 has advanced 15.1%.
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