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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a quarter that saw the company record its best-ever period for used-vehicle volume and used gross profit, Sonic Automotive's adjusted earnings from continuing operations climbed 41 percent.

Specifically, these earnings were at $15.6 million for the second quarter, compared to $11.1 million in the year-ago period.

Net income was $14.8 million, up from $8.8 million in the second quarter of 2009.

"We are pleased with the growth in both revenues and profits over the second quarter of last year. Our new-vehicle business is up both sequentially and over the same period last year as we continue to see economic stabilization in certain segments of our geographic footprint," stated B. Scott Smith, company president.

"The growth in our used-vehicle business continues to drive incremental revenue in our fixed operations and F&I departments. Our strategy for some time has been focused on standardizing our operating procedures through the rollout of our operational playbooks," he continued. "Results this quarter demonstrate one of the primary benefits of our operational playbooks – they create growth opportunities not just in their specific area of the business but across all of our business lines."

Looking at the used side of Sonic's business, retail revenue was up 23 percent to $470.4 million. The company moved 24,646 used units on a retail basis. Total new-vehicle retail revenue (including fleet) was at $902.5 million, versus $772.3 million the prior year. There were 27,126 new sales (including fleet and retail).

Sonic sold 5,266 wholesale vehicles.

"We are pleased with our new-vehicle growth, particularly given that our volume declines in 2009 were not as severe as what the overall industry experienced due to our favorable brand and geographic mix," shared Jeff Dyke, Sonic's executive vice president of operations.

"Our dealerships continue to take market share and outperform the competition in their local markets. We are excited to announce that our New Car Playbook will be introduced to our stores later this year," he added.

"We expect it to provide us many of the same successes that we have already received from our proven 'used vehicle playbook,'" Dyke continued. "We also continue to be very pleased with our used-vehicle volume growth especially when we consider the 20-percent growth comes on top of 12-percent growth in 2009. We continue to show that the used-car business has tremendous upside potential as the second quarter was our largest used vehicle volume and gross profit quarter in our company's history."