TrueCar Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 6, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Total revenue grew 9.2% year-over-year to $44.8 million, with new unit sales up 23%, significantly outpacing the industry’s 6.8% growth.
  • TrueCar achieved its lowest cost per sale since 2022 through restructured performance marketing, boosting efficiency for dealer partners.
  • The TC Plus pilot drove one-third of dealer-enabled sales fully online, with two more pilot groups onboarded and full DMS integration targeted by July.
  • New 25% US tariffs on imported vehicles and parts are estimated to add about $4,500 per car, creating potential supply tightening and price increases despite near-term demand stability.
  • Due to tariff-related uncertainty, TrueCar is withholding Q2 guidance while leveraging cost flexibility to manage toward positive free cash flow.
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Earnings Conference Call
TrueCar Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and welcome to the TrueCar First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jantoon Reigersman, President and Chief Executive Officer of TrueCar. Please go ahead.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Thank you, Operator. Hello everyone, and welcome to TrueCar's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today is Oliver Foley, our Chief Financial Officer. I hope you've all had the opportunity to read our most recent stockholder letter, which was released yesterday after market close and is available on our investor relations website at ir.truecar.com. Before we get started, I need to read our safe harbor. I want to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call, including statements regarding the potential impacts of newly implemented tariffs, including those impacting the automotive sector. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as believe, expect, plan, target, anticipate, become, seek, will, intend, confident, and similar expressions, and are not and should not be relied on as guarantees of future performance or results.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by our forward-looking statements. We caution you to review the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of the factors that could cause our results to differ materially. The forward-looking statements we make on this call are based on information available to us as of today's date, and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. In addition, we will also discuss certain GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of all non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is set forth in the investor relations section of our website at ir.truecar.com.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

The non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Let us begin. We're pleased to report continued strong performance for the first quarter of 2025, especially in light of the volatile macro environment. Highlights from the first quarter include total revenue of $44.8 million grew by $3.8 million, or 9.2% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA of -$3.8 million. New unit sales volume saw a significant increase of 23% year-over-year, substantially outpacing the industry's 6.8% growth in new vehicle retail sales for the quarter. We expanded our affinity network with the addition of notable partners, including DoorDash, GasBuddy, and GovX. The transition of certain OEM incentives from American Express to the AAA auto buying side progressed rapidly, with AAA program revenue in March approaching previous levels seen with American Express.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Our restructured performance marketing campaigns continue to enhance efficiency, achieving the lowest cost per sale since 2022 and effectively driving unit sales growth for our dealer partners. In addition to delivering solid performance in the first quarter, we're excited about the progress we continue to make with TC Plus, a product we believe can fundamentally change the car buying experience for consumers and dealers. The approach we have adopted in pursuit of this vision has been built around a highly focused pilot with a singular dealer group committed to collaborating with us on the co-creation of tools and solutions that will pave the way for a broader rollout of the product. These optimizations, combined with expanding the volume of consumers entering the TC Plus purchase flow, have allowed us to steadily grow volumes while maintaining our disciplined and iterative approach to scaling the product.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Since launch, roughly a third of the pilot dealer group's TrueCar-enabled sales were driven by TC Plus consumers that completed the entire transaction or a significant portion of the purchase process online before finalizing the transaction at the dealership. We not only allowed consumers to move to an online purchase, but also expanded the sales volumes to this dealer group. A super exciting case study and a clear validation of our hypothesis so far that TC Plus not only enables a dealer to move completely online, but most certainly also expands their volumes and sales. As we seek to make TC Plus broadly scalable by year-end, the most critical workstream that remains in process is the back-end integration with two dealer management systems, DMS providers, namely CDK and Tekion, that will fully automate deal documentation and desking activities currently performed by the dealer.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

While completion of this work has been delayed by the prioritization of external resources outside our control, we aim to have both integrations substantially complete by the end of July. In spite of this, the rate at which we continue to advance the product and ready it for scale has not slowed. To this end, we're excited to have recently onboarded a second pilot dealer group with franchise stores in and around Sacramento markets, with a third expected to be onboarded later this month. The addition of these groups marks a key milestone in the growth of TC Plus that will bring new franchise brands onto the platform, broaden the inventory eligible for purchase online, and allow us to expand consumer access to TC Plus in another major market. Turning now to our views on the potential impacts from the automotive sector tariffs and how we are responding.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

The 25% tariffs applied to imported vehicles and component parts that were announced in March and which became effective April 3rd with respect to vehicles and May 3rd with respect to parts has created a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Given that approximately 50% of new vehicles retailed in the United States are imported and among vehicles produced domestically, 40%-50% of their component parts originate outside of the U.S., the tariffs, as currently in effect, are estimated to add up to approximately $4,500 of additional cost for new vehicles sold in the United States, equal to roughly 10% of the average pre-tariff new vehicle MSRP.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

While undeniably a headwind for the automotive retail ecosystem, the impact on dealers and consumers is difficult to predict without greater clarity around OEM's operational response, which will ultimately dictate changes in new vehicle supply and pricing, two of the most important factors that impact retail sales volumes. Nevertheless, in the near term, we do not expect to see a material impact to the strong and stable demand that drove year-over-year unit growth in both Q1 and April as dealers sell through pre-tariff inventory and OEMs reformulate their strategies in response to the tariffs. In the medium term, we believe there is an increased probability that new vehicle supply tightens and prices go up.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

However, potentially mitigating the magnitude of these shifts is the fact that tariff-imposed costs will not be uniform across the markets, and certain OEMs that are less impacted by the tariffs due to their supply chain footprint will emerge with a competitive pricing advantage. This dynamic, we believe, should support stable inventory levels and reduce the likelihood of broad-based consumer price increases because OEMs and dealers alike will seek to protect their market share by maintaining volumes and taking steps to keep average transaction prices stable. As such, we do not foresee new vehicle supply and retail sales volumes approaching the levels experienced during the chip shortage of 2021-2022, and believe both dealers and OEMs will continue to rely on TrueCar to support their customer acquisition and incentive strategies.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Despite this view, we are nevertheless taking steps to mitigate the impact of a potential slowdown in growth and provide us with the greatest flexibility to manage the business to positive free cash flow in any scenario that prevails over the next several quarters. Finally, lacking a clear outlook on the near and midterm market dynamics that impact our business, we believe it is prudent not to provide financial guidance for the second quarter and beyond. Despite solid performance in April, which saw strong year-over-year revenue growth driven by healthy consumer demand and OEM incentives, we cannot credibly extrapolate this performance throughout the remainder of the quarter until a majority of pre-tariff inventory has been sold and we start to observe trends in vehicle supply and pricing, which can have near-term impacts on the revenue we earn from both the dealers and OEM incentives.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Nevertheless, despite it being inherently difficult for us to credibly predict our performance in Q2 and beyond, we firmly believe that the value we are delivering to our dealers and OEM partners, combined with the flexibility we have in our cost structure, will help mitigate the impact of a potential slowdown in growth and allow us to effectively manage our cash flow in any scenario that prevails. Now, Operator, let's open the call for questions from our analysts.

Operator

We now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask questions, please press star and one. The first question comes from Naved Khan from B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Naved Khan
Naved Khan
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Thank you very much. I appreciate your thoughts on the industry trends here, Jantoon. Just a couple of clarifications. In your letter, you mentioned accelerating certain product announcements that can yield some competitive advantages for TrueCar. Can you give us a sense of what these announcements can be? The second question I have is around the incentive ad spending by OEMs. As these OEMs look to stay competitive on price and keep their share, how should we be thinking about the changes to the incentive ad spending? Could some of those dollars be used to bring down MSRP and maybe a net reduction in incentive? Thank you.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, absolutely, Naved. Thanks for the question. Number one, I think a good example is, for example, the utilization of GenAI that we've used for email campaigns as one sample of a driver. At the end of the day, what we try to do is really personalize the experience for consumers as they go through the flow. Being able to retarget them in a personalized manner and in an automated manner actually is very effective. Remember, we have access to a lot of data, both historical purchasing data as well as data on the consumers themselves as they behave on the site. Automating that and utilizing our AI tools more and more to really make this a much more personalized experience seems to be yielding very attractive results. That's just one example of the many.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

At the end of the day, it's really about the consumer journey and the dealer journey. Those are the two pieces where all the product development is focused. Vis-à-vis your OEM question, yeah, I think the hard part for us to determine and to predict is I think you could make a very good argument that OEMs will need to support effectively their vehicle sales more, and as a result, we could be well-positioned to actually benefit from that. It's just really hard to say because at the end of the day, in a world of greater uncertainty, people are just reluctant to engage. Overarching, in a world of higher tariffs and obviously trying to push consumers to make a purchasing decision on a car, I think there are a lot of tools that the OEMs have at their disposal, of which many could come through TrueCar.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

It's a reason why we're so delicate also in our language because obviously uncertainty is never good for the market, but we're very confident that we can actually be really helpful to both OEMs and dealers.

Naved Khan
Naved Khan
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Great. Thank you, Jantoon.

Operator

The next question comes from Ryan Meyers, Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Ryan Meyers
Ryan Meyers
Senior Research Analyst at Lake Street

Hey, good morning, guys. First question for me, without the kind of headcount investments now going forward, how should we think about the margins across the business? Maybe what are the biggest levers that you can pull across the cost structure?

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, I think the.

Oliver Foley
Oliver Foley
CFO at TrueCar

That's very helpful.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, Oliver, remember, there are three main buckets, and then Oliver can take it. Remember that there are three main buckets that I've mentioned many times on these calls, which is really it's headcount, it's marketing expense, and then it's effectively our overhead charge. It includes a lot of the data costs and effectively the infrastructural cost. A headcount is always important because you obviously want to make sure that you're well-balanced and efficient as an organization. Obviously on the marketing side, there are two main buckets. One is performance marketing. The other one is partner marketing. One emphasis we also did here is obviously the efficiencies we've been achieving through our marketing campaigns. That's obviously a very important lever where as we have greater efficiencies, there are obviously interesting things we can do there.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

We are continually looking at potentially right-sizing the business at the right time in the right forums as the world navigates this level of uncertainty. Oliver, go ahead.

Oliver Foley
Oliver Foley
CFO at TrueCar

Yeah, that's the only thing I'll add there, Ryan. What's going to drive margins over the next couple of quarters is sort of the revenue mix as well as sort of the flexibility we have in the cost structure. The revenue mix, ultimately, OEM revenue tends to have the highest margin. And so how much of our total revenue comes from OEMs certainly impacts margins. Conversely, TrueCar Marketing Solutions or some of our vehicle sourcing products around TrueCar Wholesale Solutions, those have lower margins. Depending upon the mix, ultimately that will impact margins. On the cost structure side, we're really focused right now on flexibility. Given the uncertainty, it's about how can we adapt under any scenario to manage cash flow effectively and ultimately be cash flow break-even.

Oliver Foley
Oliver Foley
CFO at TrueCar

We're pretty confident we've got a decent amount of flexibility across the cost structure, so across all three of those buckets, both headcount, marketing, and sort of overhead. Whether it's sort of outsourced services or it's continuing to lean into marketing campaigns that really have the highest return, really quick payback, that's really where we're focused so that we can manage in any scenario that prevails over the next couple of quarters.

Ryan Meyers
Ryan Meyers
Senior Research Analyst at Lake Street

Okay, got it. And then just one sort of clarification question. I think you guys had said this in your prepared remarks, but it sounds like with the loss of the American Express business, that's now been filled and picked up by the business that you guys are working with AAA. Is that the right way to understand that?

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, I mean, it's on its way. I wouldn't say that it's 100% filled up, but it's obviously because these programs take time to ramp up, but it's getting very close to those levels.

Ryan Meyers
Ryan Meyers
Senior Research Analyst at Lake Street

Got it. Thanks for taking my question, guys.

Operator

The next question comes from Tom White, D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Tom White
Tom White
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Two, if I could, I guess just first on tariffs. Jantoon, in the letter, you kind of touch on how not all OEMs will be kind of impacted the same. I was hoping you could just kind of update us on your franchise dealers. Sort of what is your kind of exposure to different OEMs? I think you guys skew a little bit more towards kind of the Asian OEMs, some of the Japanese brands. I'm just curious, is there a reason to think that your specific mix of certified dealers will be better or worse able to kind of navigate what's happening? That's my first one. The second one is just on kind of uses of capital. Just curious if you're giving any more serious consideration about buying back stock here. Thanks.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah. On the first one, the comment was less about alluding to whether we're better or worse positioned. I think it's just hard to say at this stage. I think it was more intended to say long-term, probably not all OEMs are impacted equal. What we do is obviously we're very focused on helping OEMs with their respective issues to help solve those through our programs. What we mean with that is obviously if somebody's more impacted or needs a specific type of help, then obviously we'll jump in and we feel that there are opportunities there. It really depends on the type of impact that each of these OEMs has. We indeed skew a little bit more Asian makes more broadly, but this also shifts very much throughout the year. That really depends.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

At the end of the day, it also really depends on inventory mix and then eventually, obviously, the type of incentives the OEMs are willing to put on these cars. I think it is less about whether we are better or worse positioned because I really think there is such a thing currently within the new space. However, I do think that the adaptability to really help the OEMs where they would like to emphasize and where they would like to effectively adjust some of their pain points is something that we are very capable of and we have proven to be very capable of. We will obviously have to navigate that somewhat smartly as we go through this. On your second question on the capital allocation, the answer is always yes.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

I think this is, we've obviously been asked this a lot and we have a significant cash balance in play. We very often review, almost continuously review, our capital allocation strategies and do that the right way. Share buybacks are always one tool in that effectively basket of tools that we have. That is something that we always consider and at the right time will consider.

Tom White
Tom White
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at D.A. Davidson

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Chris Pierce, Needham. Please go ahead.

Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce
Senior Analyst at Needham

Hey, good morning. On TC Plus, the dealer you cited, is there a way to know if these units are additive to units they wouldn't have sold? Can you remind me or remind us, is there an increased economic benefit to TrueCar from these units given I think the dealer probably makes a higher margin given less sales commission on these units? What's the push and pull there?

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, Chris, absolutely. On the first, the answer is yes. This is what's really exciting about this. At some point, I would love to actually provide you guys with a lot more detail on it and actually literally present you guys with a case study on it. Long story short is yes. There are two things that have really happened there in the case study, which is one is clearly a shift from people that historically were obviously just leads basically becoming fully online purchasers, number one. Number two, also significantly increasing the volumes that we were bringing to that dealer. There are really two things happening, both makeshift to online as well as increased volumes. I think as a case study, that's a really good case study that we're really excited about.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Obviously now we feel we should add a couple more dealers on to effectively run similar case studies, both because there are slightly different DMAs and see how that behavior or whether the behavior is any different, and two, also adding more brands because obviously that also will then increase inventory, but also obviously we will see the behavior and different behaviors that are happening online. We are almost, for lack of a better word, and as one of our board members often tells me, we are kind of going slow in order to go fast, which is really honing in on to understanding this in detail. As soon as these DMS providers are kind of up to date and ready for us to automate these things, we can really start pushing the scaling much faster and much harder.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

I think so far these results are effectively confirming all the hypotheses and the thesis we had in the past. Yeah. Chris, what was your second question again on the, oh, the economic benefit?

Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce
Senior Analyst at Needham

Monetization.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah. Monetization. Currently we're not doing the monetization, it's just as if it's a lead. This is really because we're focused on, we're obviously asking a lot from these dealers at this stage because obviously there's close integration happening. We're learning a lot. There's a lot of things we're doing. We're monetizing it as if it's a regular lead at this point. We're not yet monetizing it really at a TrueCar Plus basis. We only want to start doing that once we properly start scaling because we really want to, we don't want the monetization to be affecting any of the testing and trial and error we're doing today.

Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce
Senior Analyst at Needham

Okay. And then just lastly for me, on the pause of the dealer sales headcount, are you anticipating that there's going to be uncertainty from the dealers and the OEMs, or are you actually hearing that from dealers right now and it's kind of affecting what you had thought was going to be your go-to-market, or are you just sort of building it in because of the elevated uncertainty?

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, elevated uncertainty. We're just building it in. There's no reason to go, "Let's feel out the market a little bit more. Let's be a little bit more efficient first. See kind of how this is going to play out. Be there to be helpful for the dealers." That's really the main focus right now. It is really in anticipation of. It is not necessarily because we're reacting to something specific.

Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce
Senior Analyst at Needham

Okay. Perfect. Thanks for the clarification. Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Rajat Gupta, JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Jash Patwa
Jash Patwa
Equity Reseach Associate at JPMorgan

Hi, good morning. This is Jash Patwa on for Rajat Gupta. Thanks for taking our questions. I was just hoping to get some further color on your decision to not provide guidance for the second quarter despite the subscription nature of the business and also since most manufacturers have held pricing stable on model year 2025 vehicles through early June. Along the same line of thought, would you be able to share an update on the dealer revenue split between subscriptions and paper sale? Thanks. I have a follow-up.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, I'll take the first one. I'll have Oliver answer you the second one. The guidance really is very simple is that if we were to provide some form of guidance and then there's some crazy news that comes out in some shape or form, then suddenly you get into all those triggers where you've guided to something and then how does that affect and then how do you then speak to the market about that? It just makes life a lot more complicated. I think if there's nothing strange coming further in the next couple of months and quarters, I think things become relatively predictable in a way that we've always been able to relatively well predict. The real reason to pull back on any form of guidance is really just because of the high level of uncertainty. It's less about the business model.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

It's more that if tomorrow tariffs get doubled, then it's really hard to assess exactly what the impact is at this stage. That level of uncertainty just makes it that it's easier to just refrain from providing any guidance. Oliver can take question number two.

Oliver Foley
Oliver Foley
CFO at TrueCar

Yeah, I'd say if you just look at our dealer revenue, about 20% of it comes from paper sale, with the remaining 80% being sort of recurring subscription-based. I think OEM obviously is the other sort of variable revenue component, right? That can move up or down quite significantly depending upon sort of how OEMs sort of recalibrate their incentive strategies going forward. I think when you've got a relatively small revenue base with, I think, a decent chunk of it that's non-subscription revenue, the volatility that we've seen makes it very difficult to sort of predict those non-subscription-based revenue lines, and they can have a material impact as a result.

Jash Patwa
Jash Patwa
Equity Reseach Associate at JPMorgan

That's very helpful. Thank you. As a follow-up, there were a lot of great details in the prepared remarks and shareholder letter around the progress of the TrueCar Plus offering, which we really appreciate. Maybe just following up to Chris's question, could you also discuss the potential cost savings realized at the pilot dealer group with a larger proportion of volumes now being transacted through the TC Plus channel? Additionally, has there been any cultural pushback at the stores considering that transactions through end-to-end online channels might impact the store associates' variable pay? Thank you.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah. These are all good questions. I'm trying to think how to answer them concisely. Yeah, there are a lot of savings that are important. Number one, you can start selling as a dealership 24/7, right? That's really important. In other words, at night, when people are sleeping, you arrive in the office the next morning, you effectively have sales happening throughout the night. That's number one. Number two is obviously they're able to expand almost their geographical footprint effectively, right? Number three is obviously people at leisure at their home looking at attaching products feel more confident, feel more confident with peer reviews, etc. There's a different group of customers that effectively the dealer is able to address and serve that have different types of needs than the ones that really enjoy going into a dealership.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

The answer is yes. It's not just purely by volume, but it's also by the type of consumers they're obviously pursuing. You go into the backend side of things. Really, now suddenly you can be much more efficient with your sales team throughout the day and really serve the people that are in the store and have effectively your sales team fewer on the phone per se chasing potential leads. As a result, I think you can become much more efficient on that side over time, obviously, depending on the type of dealerships. They could even consider whether sales commissions should even be part of the online sales. Once you start moving to the next phase, you really start thinking about, you can even start thinking about real estate costs and location costs effectively.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

It's like how much inventory do you actually need to have on a prime real estate location, or can you actually use a secondary location, etc.? I think the complexity that always comes from scaling a product like TrueCar Plus is that, and it's both the complexity as well as an opportunity as a dealership when you run multiple stores, how are you going to actually deal with online sales from an operational perspective? Do you have a single person in all different stores being responsible for online sales? Do they then carry multiple brands? If somebody from an online sale comes and wants to pick up the car, do they pick that up on a centralized location or one of the brand dealerships? All these types of little nuances actually really matter, and they matter a lot in also then the cost burden to the dealership, right?

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

It all comes down to either efficiencies or inefficiencies. The ability to start selling more with less friction, less logistical complexity is something that's super attractive. More importantly, also start selling in off-hours or sell to people that otherwise would have been reluctant to walk into a store or would have walked in by necessity or would have taken a lot of time in the store. Now suddenly you can run all the operations much more efficiently. Net-net, I think there are a lot of cost savings to be had for the dealerships. I think as we go forward with every one of the dealerships, it's going to very depend on what they're very focused on themselves. It's very obvious that for the dealerships, this is a really interesting value proposition.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

It will allow for the buy to effectively be split in a different form and for us to be able to monetize this in an attractive way.

Jash Patwa
Jash Patwa
Equity Reseach Associate at JPMorgan

Great. Thanks a lot, Jantoon and Oliver. Good luck.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question comes from Marvin Fong, BTIG. Please go ahead.

Marvin Fong
Marvin Fong
Equity Research Analyst at BTIG

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First, you referenced you expect CDK and Tekion to come online, I think, somewhere around July. How confident are you on that timeline? Could you just maybe clue us in? I think you mentioned that the delays are sort of outside of your control. I mean, is it that they're working on something related to macro that's kind of tying their attention? Just maybe some insight there would be great. I have a follow-up.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, absolutely. The one that we've been working with mostly has been CDK. Tekion, we've just started engaging with. We'll probably run through that timeline with them in relatively short order. For CDK, really, the issue has been twofold. One is just resource allocation. Second of all, obviously, CDK is also more complex, architecturally a more complex organization in the backend. As a result, for them to adapt accordingly is a little bit trickier. As soon as we do something and we effectively then test it, often products are slightly buggy or have some issues, and then they need to pull the team back in, and there's a little bit of an iteration that happens there. I think the good news is they're very focused on it. The tricky bit is that they also are looking to replatform as an organization.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

There is always some delay that comes with that and obviously a loss of focus. I think we're confident to have the right product development roadmap now with them to be able to do that. In parallel, obviously, we're accelerating the integrations with Tekion as well, which probably will be an easier and faster integration in that case because obviously they do not carry the same tech debt as CDK does.

Marvin Fong
Marvin Fong
Equity Research Analyst at BTIG

Got it. Thanks for that. My follow-up, I mean, I think we all acknowledge the uncertainty here and respect you're not providing guidance. It's just a higher-level question on what you're seeing in your dealership conversations and how they're behaving. I mean, should we just assume that there's this general paralysis in the sales channel, or are there actually some signings going on? Just maybe a bit deeper insight on what's going on in the field would be great.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Yeah, it's a good question. The honest answer, Marvin, is so far so good, to be very honest. There's just a lot of uncertainty. I think that's also what we try to relay in the letter where we try to kind of walk the nuances, right? Where it's like Q1 was actually a pretty good quarter. April clearly held up accordingly as well. It's just hard to extrapolate because you just don't know what's coming from left field. I think so far so good, the morale and just overarching the success of the relative dealers. Now, obviously, don't forget that as has been the case already for a couple of years, I think independents will suffer, right? The smaller independents will continue to suffer until affordability becomes, obviously, there's some easing there.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

I think from the perspective of the franchises and the new cars, I think they're holding up so far, they're holding up strong, and obviously people are still buying. It's hard to say whether this is a nervous buying pre-tariffs or whether this is business as usual. We will see, and we'll see how this flows through. So far, there's no red flag in the field itself.

Marvin Fong
Marvin Fong
Equity Research Analyst at BTIG

Yeah. Thanks so much, Jantoon. Appreciate it.

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jantoon for closing remarks.

Jantoon Reigersman
Jantoon Reigersman
CEO at TrueCar

Right. I just would like to thank everybody for taking the time to participate in our call. I want to thank the team. I know with all the macro volatility around us, it's amazing to see the team and firm keep steady, focused, and do what we need to do. Thank you, everyone, and thank you today for listening.

Executives
    • Oliver Foley
      Oliver Foley
      CFO
    • Jantoon Reigersman
      Jantoon Reigersman
      CEO
Analysts
    • Chris Pierce
      Senior Analyst at Needham
    • Ryan Meyers
      Senior Research Analyst at Lake Street
    • Marvin Fong
      Equity Research Analyst at BTIG
    • Naved Khan
      Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities
    • Tom White
      Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at D.A. Davidson
    • Jash Patwa
      Equity Reseach Associate at JPMorgan
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