Bryan DeBoer: Well, Chris, you’re being awfully generous there. This is Bryan. I think for us, if you’ve been around Lithia & Driveway long enough, we keep our heads down. And most important, we stay pretty humble. So I don’t know if we’re best in class operators. I do know that our design is quite special and is different than what the independent operators or our fellow peers are doing. Most importantly, I think today, looking at our results, I would challenge our teams to continue to dig deeper in terms of market share, in terms of cost cutting, in terms of keeping margins and really expanding the customer experience to be able to grow in loyalty. So we have a lot of opportunity, Chris, and we’re not going to sit here and pat ourselves in the back when we’re sitting here with — hurrying to try to figure out how to respond to declining GPUs. We obviously had planned well for those things, but we’re not done, okay?
The achievement of a $2 of EPS for every $1 billion of revenue is not something that my team and I take lightly. It’s something that is 100% our focus. It is about EPS and the results and bringing that back to shareholders. And we do that through great customer experiences that create more loyalty, higher market share and better profitability. So I would say, relative to where independent competitors, we love the industry. We’re not here to try to disrupt what they’re doing. We’re here to conquest market share in our own way. And we obviously have Driveway, GreenCars and other assets within our design that allows us to conquest market share outside of the Lithia footprint. And all of our focuses are really that. We do have some hangover from the Western market still, and I think that does dilute some of our results and what our performance looks like.
But again, we’re not here to make excuses. We’re here to take action.
Chris Bottiglieri: Got you. Okay, thank you, Bryan.
Operator: Our next question comes from Ron Josey with Citi. Please proceed with your question.
Ron Josey: Great. Thank for taking the question here. I wanted to focus a little bit more on newer sales channels, Bryan, and ask about Internet specifically with having sales up 8% sequentially to 41,000 units, traffic reaching 12.3 million across all of the properties. Just talk to us about the overall platform for online awareness strategy here. I think there was comments a few quarters ago just about a lot more traffic than you knew what to do with. So would love to hear an update there. And then lastly, I think you mentioned called burn rates for cut in half as you refine your e-commerce strategy. Just any insights on these improvements would be very helpful.
Bryan DeBoer: You bet, Ron, I may touch on it briefly and let Adam chime in a little bit as well since he and Dianna are the ones driving the successful results in driving GreenCars. I think when we think about top of funnel, what we’re doing is adapting to the omnichannel. And I think it’s taken some of the stores a little bit longer to get into that rhythm that customers truly should have the optionality to do things in their home or in the dealership. And I think that’s a result of a 32% increase in total transactions that were done online year-over-year. That’s big input with only about a 9% top of funnel improvement. So good improvements there. When it comes to Driveway, we did reduce our burn by 50%, which is good. I’ll let Adam talk a little bit about where do we go from there, but we’re sure hoping that we can reduce it by another 50% over the coming periods.
And I think from my standpoint, the work that Adam and Dianna and the teams in Driveway have done over the last 90 to 180 days is constructive. They have their pulse of multiple different levers to pull. And I can see a pathway again to get to breakeven and even profitability in the mid- to near future. Adam, any additional thoughts?
Adam Chamberlain: Hi, good morning. This is Adam. Yes, just to pick up, Bryan, where you left off. We’ve managed to drive down the burn rate, as you said, by about 50% year-on-year, and we see further enhancements possible really through two levels. We’ve become much more efficient in our marketing spend, so marketing spend is down about 40% year-on-year. And we’ve become much more efficient in our transaction processing through things like automated sales force process and things like that. So yes, we’re working hard and see further improvements possible, Bryan.
Bryan DeBoer: Great. Thanks, Ron.
Ron Josey: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Colin Langan with Wells Fargo.
Colin Langan: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just want to follow up. You mentioned new GPUs down $150 a month — on a monthly basis. If I look at same store, I think it’s actually closer to like $110, $115. Isn’t some of that pace going to be reflected in Pendragon’s impact? Is there — is it like about $100…
Bryan DeBoer: You nailed it, Colin. Yes, you nailed it. This is Bryan. I mean, the difference between same-store and in total is basically about $40, okay? And it’s about — I think it’s about $300 or $400 in aggregate. And it’s coming from the U.K. dilution from lower GPUs in the United Kingdom.
Colin Langan: Okay. So when we’re thinking about the U.S. new GPU decline, it actually is kind of the same pace as it was the end of last year? Or actually has that gotten worse, too?
Bryan DeBoer: I think it’s somewhat similar. I mean, it’s — I think it’s a little bit worse. But again, I think the reason we displayed it as it was, is it was tough in January and February. And then we saw a little bit of recovery again in March in both new and used.
Colin Langan: Got it. And then you mentioned that the target for SG&A. It sounds like it’s still mid-50% even with the Pendragon addition. Because coming on at 85% in the U.K.
Bryan DeBoer: Correct.
Colin Langan: I mean, so what are the — so do you think you could get that U.K. business to be the same profit level? Or is it just there’s more room to go on the U.S. business that could kind of keep you on that target?
