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CVNA · Forward model · Wholesale sales and revenues · Bear case

What has to happen in Wholesale sales and revenues

Model as of

This page changes Wholesale sales and revenues inside the complete CVNA model. Every other vertical, corporate programme and valuation assumption stays in the selected portfolio case.

CVNA forward model
Horizon
Consolidated fair value $32.62 all other verticals held in this portfolio case
Final-quarter revenue $2.24B 18% of company revenue
Explicit segment contribution $2.57B EBITDA less segment capex, before corporate items

Volume keeps compounding and margin does not. Management goes on passing unit-economics gains back to customers as lower interest rates, other gross profit per retail unit keeps eroding with benchmark rates, and the used-vehicle cycle turns. FY2026 Adjusted EBITDA lands at $2.71B - the low end of the guided range - and the consolidated margin is still 9.5% in 2031 rather than climbing toward 13.5%. The exit multiple compresses to 12x and the discount rate rises to 13%, which together do most of the damage.

Wholesale sales and revenues

Basis quarter$1.34B
Final quarter$2.24B
Implied CAGR+11%
Final revenue mix18%

Wholesale vehicles sold - overwhelmingly trade-ins Carvana does not retail - plus ADESA wholesale marketplace fees; $1,343M in 2026 Q2, 18.2% of revenue. Volume is a by-product of retail transaction volume and of the ADESA auction business, so wholesale units track retail units with a wider amplitude. Monetisation is blended revenue per wholesale vehicle, because the reported revenue line includes marketplace revenue that Carvana's own disclosed per-unit metric explicitly excludes by footnote.

Last four quarters
2025 Q3 $1.18B Reported
2025 Q4 $988M Reported
2026 Q1 $1.08B Reported
2026 Q2 $1.34B Reported
Wholesale vehicle sales (trade-ins and vehicles not retailed)ADESA wholesale marketplace revenue (auction fees and services)
Units 101012/qtr growing +6.5% per quarter 105,052 wholesale vehicles sold in 2026 Q2, divided by the 1.04 second-quarter factor the index puts back.
Price per unit $12784 drifting −0.3% per quarter $12,784 is total wholesale revenue over wholesale vehicles - blended, because the line also carries ADESA fees.
Wholesale sales and revenues

Latest: $2.24B (2031Q2E)

Period Value
2023Q1 $618M
2023Q2 $777M
2023Q3 $610M
2023Q4 $499M
2024Q1 $657M
2024Q2 $720M
2024Q3 $786M
2024Q4 $678M
2025Q1 $863M
2025Q2 $1.02B
2025Q3 $1.18B
2025Q4 $988M
2026Q1 $1.08B
2026Q2 $1.34B
2026Q3E $1.48B
2026Q4E $1.21B
2027Q1E $1.43B
2027Q2E $1.56B
2027Q3E $1.70B
2027Q4E $1.39B
2028Q1E $1.63B
2028Q2E $1.76B
2028Q3E $1.91B
2028Q4E $1.55B
2029Q1E $1.80B
2029Q2E $1.94B
2029Q3E $2.10B
2029Q4E $1.69B
2030Q1E $1.96B
2030Q2E $2.10B
2030Q3E $2.26B
2030Q4E $1.82B
2031Q1E $2.10B
2031Q2E $2.24B

Assumptions & reasoning

  • Fourteen quarters of the disclosed 'Wholesale sales and revenues' line, copied from the shareholder letters. Nothing here is apportioned or estimated.
  • The price per unit is blended and derived, not disclosed: $1,343M over 105,052 wholesale vehicles is $12,784, against the $10,633 Carvana publishes for wholesale vehicles alone. The $226M difference is marketplace revenue that footnote 3 excludes from the per-unit figure. It is arithmetically implied by two disclosed numbers, so it is reported here as a residual and never promoted to a vertical of its own.
  • Seasonality [Q1 0.99, Q2 1.04, Q3 1.10, Q4 0.87] is the most pronounced of the three lines, because trade-in supply and auction throughput peak with the spring and summer selling season and collapse in the holiday quarter. The Q4 trough is the reliable part - the weakest quarter in every year-window measured, on a within-quarter spread of 0.045. The Q3 factor is the shakier one: across all ten available ratios its spread is 0.165, because the ADESA marketplace inside this line has been scaling all through the window, so part of the apparent third-quarter lift is ramp rather than season.
  • The units in the driver are the deseasonalised 101,012 rather than the printed 105,052, for the same reason as retail: the engine reapplies the 1.04 second-quarter factor itself.
  • Wholesale grew 44.4% in units and fell 1.1% in revenue per vehicle in the same quarter. This line adds volume, not price, which is why the price drift starts negative and only recovers to a nominal 0.3% a quarter.
  • The 11.76% margin is disclosed wholesale gross profit of $158M over $1,343M of wholesale revenue. No capital expenditure is assigned here: Carvana discloses no capex split, and the reconditioning and inspection capacity it is actually building serves the retail line.
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