10. Autozone Inc. (NYSE:AZO)
Share Price as of March 17: $3,554.91
Surge in Share Price in 5 Years: 388.22%
Stock Split Confirmed: No
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 56
Autozone Inc. (NYSE:AZO) retails and distributes automotive replacement parts and accessories across the US, Mexico, and Brazil. It offers a range of products for vehicles, from essential maintenance items to hard parts and accessories. It caters to both DIY customers and professional mechanics through various sales channels. These include online platforms and commercial programs.
The company’s Domestic Commercial business had its sales up 7.3% year-over-year in FQ2 2025. This segment now represents 31% of domestic auto parts sales and 27% of total company sales. Each of the company’s commercial sales programs brought in an average of $14,700 in sales every week, which is a 4.3% improvement.
To fuel this growth, Autozone Inc. (NYSE:AZO) is expanding its Mega-Hub network. The company ended FQ2 with 111 Mega-Hubs and plans to add at least 19 more in the next two quarters. The company’s Mega-Hub network consists of large stores carrying over 100,000 SKUs which are designed to boost commercial sales and serve as expanded assortment sources for other stores. The company is focused on increasing its market share by attracting new commercial customers and selling more to existing ones.
The company’s leadership in the growing automotive parts market, strong customer service, and disciplined capital allocation position it for continued success. Brown Advisors Global Leaders Strategy stated the following regarding AutoZone Inc. (NYSE:AZO) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“AutoZone, Inc. (NYSE:AZO) is the leading replacement automotive parts retailer and distributor in the US, servicing both the Do-it-Yourself (DIY) and Do-it-for-Me (DIFM) segments of the used car market, a market that is structurally growing as the fleet expands, with a high degree of visibility into future demand of the 6+ year used car cohort, which is AutoZone’s core target market. AutoZone is expanding into the faster growing DIFM market, as well as into Brazil and Mexico. The company’s superior customer outcome is immediate parts availability and the meaningful de-risking of the balance sheets of smaller garages which do not need to hold inventory themselves. It offers a differentiated service for customers based on local availability of parts (“in stock, in market”), quick turnaround speed and advice (including free specialty tool loans so DIY customers can complete necessary maintenance at lower cost but generating enduring loyalty). All this has historically proven difficult to replicate in an e-commerce setting. While there are a small number of large companies operating in this growing market, further consolidation of smaller competitors is expected as leading retailers’ scale (depth and breadth of inventory) and network effects (proximity to customers in immediate need of repair) constitute strong moats. One of the impressive characteristics of the company’s capital allocation is that it has delivered exceptional capital discipline and deployed its cash flow into share buybacks which has reduced the company’s share count by about 85% since 2000.”
