Driven Brands, which owns Auto Glass Now, recently announced its 2022 fiscal data, claiming “record results” for the year alongside the company’s seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit, same-store sales growth.
The company says same-store sales and net-store growth were the driving forces behind a 39% revenue increase for 2022, to $2 billion. Driven Brands added 393 net new stores throughout the course of the year, with net income increasing $33.6 million to $43.2 million.
The company’s paint, collision and glass sector totaled nearly $3 million in system-wide sales in 2022, with revenue of more than $410 million.
“2022 was a year of record performance as we deepened our competitive moat and gained market share in the needs-based automotive services category,” says CEO Jonathan Fitzpatrick. “Building on our strong performance and leveraging our proven growth playbook, we entered 2023 with momentum, excellent visibility into expenses, and a robust pipeline with line of sight into multi-year growth.”
Driven Brands’ fourth quarter results show a 38% increase in revenue to $539.7 million, with the paint, collision and glass sector accounting for more than $122 million in revenue. Same-store sales also increased by 11%.
Moving into 2023, Driven Brands expects a 5-7% increase in same-store sales growth, as well as net store growth including approximately 130 additional paint, collision and glass stores. Of that figure, the company says 25% will be franchised and the remaining 75% operated by Driven Brands.
They’ve over-saturated the auto glass market. They now own at least 5 or more shops within 20 miles of me. My area doesn’t need this many shops, there were never enough jobs here for that many shops or online listings. My sales have plummeted since their acquisitions and the few other competitors that are left are having a race to the bottom to get the last of what’s left. Google is partly to blame, it shows the same 2 businesses just over and over again to the intended customers. In the local map they must see Safelite and driven brand shops at least 4 to 5 times in a single scroll even when those shops have no address which is often the case and may never see mine regardless of relevance. Then of course they’re at the top always because they spend top dollar on ads which has made same ads pretty much unaffordable for the normal small shop. And they’re underneath the locals in the search over and over again because they’ve just flooded the web not only with their endless site maps but the never ending paid Backlinks from every major name on the earth. My business just has no way to survive without leaving for a more isolated area away from big cities. I don’t see how that’s good for our industry or the consumer. Small business is shrinking across America. Why is nobody talking about it?