Dominick Zarcone
President And Chief Executive Officer at LKQ
Thank you, Joe, and good morning to everybody on the call. This morning, I will provide some high-level comments related to our performance in the quarter, and then Varun will dive into the financial details as well as our improved outlook for 2021 before I come back with a few closing remarks. This was another quarter of significant operating progress, driven by excellent execution and improved business conditions. I cannot be prouder of the LKQ team. A few years ago, when we pivoted to operational excellence, we knew that there would be a transition period during which we would need to invest in our people and processes to improve the operating model. We also recognize that there would be difficult decisions needed to rightsize the cost structure and drive efficiencies. We undertook this shift with the expectation that we would come out the other side as a leaner, more nimble and stronger organization, one that could succeed in difficult conditions like we have seen with the pandemic over the past year as well as thrive during the good times.
Those expectations are being realized. While I'm not ready to proclaim mission accomplished, I believe we have made tremendous progress in our operational excellence transition as evidenced by the continued outstanding results that we've delivered over the past year. Record outcomes don't happen by accident. And the team has driven strong profitability and cash flow by, among other actions, applying a disciplined pricing approach; implementing permanent cost-saving actions, including closing underperforming locations, consolidating delivery routes and reducing headcount; tightening our operating policies to reduce waste and increase yield, such as harvesting more catalytic converters per car; actively engaging with our vendor partners to ensure that we are receiving attractive pricing and market payment terms; and monitoring our receivables, so that we minimize past due balances.
Now on to the quarter. We were able to produce yet another record quarter. Indeed, each of the last four quarters' results represents the highest earnings per share reported in the respective quarters, with Q2 of 2021 reflecting the first quarter with over $1 of earnings per share and the highest segment EBITDA margins in over a decade. Varun will dig into the margin details shortly. Revenue for the second quarter of 2021 was $3.4 billion, an increase of 31% as compared to the $2.6 billion in the second quarter of 2020. In the second quarter, parts and services organic revenue increased 22%, while the net impact of acquisitions and divestitures decreased revenue by 0.3%, and foreign exchange rates increased revenue 5.4%.
This creates a total parts and services revenue increase of 27%. The organic revenue growth for the quarter reflects the annualization of the pandemic impact during Q2 of 2020. Net income for the second quarter of 2021 was $305 million as compared to $119 million for the same period in 2020, an increase of 157%. Diluted earnings per share for the second quarter was $1.01 as compared to $0.39 for the same period last year, an increase of 159%. On an adjusted basis, net income in the second quarter was $340 million compared to $161 million in the same period of 2020, a 111% increase. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the second quarter was $1.13 as compared to $0.53 for the same period of 2020, a 113% increase. Now let's turn to some of the quarterly segment highlights. Slide five of our presentation sets forth the monthly revenue trends for the quarter. And as you can see, coming off the low base of the second quarter of 2020, the growth rates improved significantly year-over-year for each of the segments, with April and May being the most notable.
The vaccination rates in our key geographic markets is encouraging. Europe, in particular, witnessed a solid increase in vaccinations throughout the second quarter, although it still lags the United States. We, like many, are closely monitoring the Delta variant and the risk of policy actions potentially slowing the economic growth if the variants were to rapidly spread. Turning to North America. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fuel consumption for the second quarter was 28% above the prior year and 5% below the second quarter of 2019. From Slide six, you will note that organic revenue for parts and services for our North American segment increased 19.7% in the quarter on a year-over-year basis.
When looking at our performance relative to collision and liability repairable claims data in the quarter, given the aberrations associated with the significant swings in 2020, we believe the most relevant comparison is to the second quarter of 2019. During Q2, organic revenue for parts and services for our North American segment declined about 9% on a per day basis relative to 2019, while repairable claims declined 15%, so another period of outperformance for our North American operations. I want to highlight a couple of examples of how the North American team continues to push the operational excellence initiatives.
In 2019, our North American team initiated a lean operating strategy based on the principle of doing more with less. During the first step of this strategy, the team asked the simple question, what does winning look like? The answers to that question allowed the team to unify and develop several key performance indicators that were deployed in early 2020 prior to the pandemic, and we immediately generated positive results. We are now in the second phase of this strategy, which is systematically implementing a lean road map to optimize those KPIs. We are transitioning the team to a daily management system, which addresses safety, quality, delivery and our customers.
This system is improving our communication and accountability while driving root cause and corrective actions, along with sustainable sharing of best practices. In Q2, our salvage procurement team began utilizing artificial intelligence to optimize the procurement of the salvage vehicles we've bid on at auction. This artificial intelligence uses computer vision, a technology that allows algorithms to reason based on images to assess the specific damage on each vehicle and to determine which parts can be recycled and reused. This technology enhances the human element of our procurement processes to further improve our part yield per vehicle and to advance the quality standards of each part.
Additionally, during the quarter, our Elitek business expanded its services beyond on-site mobile diagnostics and repair to also include remote automotive diagnostics and remote programming. Moving on to our European segment. Organic revenue for parts and services in the second quarter increased 20.7% on a reported basis and 19.2% on a same-day basis. When compared to 2019, our European revenue was down about 2% on a per day basis. Our regional operations continue to experience varying revenue performance in the quarter, but each market was positive on a year-over-year basis. Our U.K. business had the strongest recovery, largely due to our favorable inventory availability relative to the competition, and we are confident we are gaining share in the U.K. market.
I am also pleased to say that we are witnessing some modest market recovery in Italy, a market that was dramatically impacted by the pandemic. But it continues to remain a drag on the revenue growth and margins for the overall segment. As you can see from the significant expansion in the European margins, we are making excellent progress on our one LKQ Europe program. Since September 2019, when we first announced the program, the European EBITDA margins have increased about 300 basis points from 7.7% in the second quarter of 2019 to 10.7% in the second quarter of 2021. In reality, there have been two distinct components to this effort. One is organizational and relates to creating a fully centralized pan-European leadership team and functional structure.
The other is execution-related, which focuses on the key initiatives outlined in prior communications, such as procurement, logistics and local projects. Over the past two years, we have been working both components simultaneously, and I'm happy to announce that we have completed the organizational transformation. We now have all the right people in the right seats and a streamlined structure that reflects a single business as opposed to a collection of independent businesses. The execution element will be with us forever and will be the driving factor behind the continued productivity improvements in the years to come.
A few other items to note in Europe would include that during the first week of July, we began onboarding the first group of about 25 employees for our innovation and service center in Katowice, Poland. The four CDC project in the Netherlands remains on track, and the start of that major warehouse operation is planned for March 2022. And our ERP implementation at Rhiag in Italy went live on July 5. Some of you may have noted that on July 14, the European Commission came forward with the Fit for 55 proposal, which accelerates in details plans for a greener economy and reducing net admissions in Europe by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990. As a leader in the circular economy and the largest vehicle and parts recycler worldwide, LKQ embraces the global effort to reduce CO2 emissions. Our European segment and also Mekonomen, where we have a 26% stake, are first movers in supporting our customers for service and repair of hybrid and electrical vehicles.
According to ACEA, the manufacturing -- automobile manufacturing association of Europe, banning a specific technology is not the sole and rational way forward. And internal combustion engines, including hybrids, need to play a role in the transition to zero emissions. Now let's move on to our Specialty segment, which, again, knocked the cover off the ball during the second quarter by reporting organic revenue growth of 30.1%. Specialty had a record-breaking quarter in terms of revenue, EBITDA dollars and EBITDA percentages. As witnessed in Q1, the drivers of this tremendous performance continue to be the strong ongoing demand for parts related to RVs and light trucks, combined with a very disciplined approach to controlling cost. We also believe that the stimulus checks benefited the Specialty business in the quarter.
Across all of our segments, we are experiencing some level of supply chain shortages and disruptions. These disruptions are creating product scarcity and freight delays that are resulting in meaningful availability pressures in certain product lines. The supply chain challenges are also driving product inflation which, in turn, is generating the most robust pricing environment we've seen in years. Across all of our segments, we have been very effective in passing along these costs as witnessed by our margin performance. Alongside supply chain inflationary pressures, like many businesses across the globe, we are facing wage inflation and increased competition for labor.
We are constantly looking at our wage structure and turnover rates across all of our segments to ensure we stay ahead of any competitive pressures and help backfill the open positions with the best candidates we can attract. From a corporate development perspective, in the second quarter, we acquired the business and assets of Green Bean Battery, a hybrid battery reconditioner and installer. Also in Q2, Warn acquired Fabtech Industries, a leading manufacturer of aftermarket suspensions for light trucks and SUVs. Fabtech brands, which include Dirt Logic and Stealth Shocks, are widely recognized premium offerings in the off-road racing and performance segments, and they're a tremendous complement to our line of Warn products.
Both of these small tuck-in acquisitions represent our ongoing effort to evolve our product offerings to match the changes taking place in the car park and to leverage our robust networks across all segments to sell deeper into existing and prospective customers. Lastly, I am proud to announce that during the second quarter, MSCI increased LKQ's ESG rating from A to AA, which is the second increase in the past two years. This new AA rating places us in the top 19% of our index group. Also, earlier this month, ISS significantly increased our social and governance QuickScore ratings. Please refer to Slide 18, which highlights our environmental stewardship in the quarter.
And I will now turn the discussion over to Varun, who'll run you through the details of the strong second quarter performance.