Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Copart, Inc. first quarter fiscal 2019 earnings call. Just a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jay Adair, Chief Executive Officer of Copart, Inc. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Chantelle. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the first quarter conference call for Copart fiscal 2019. It's my pleasure this morning to turn it over to Jeff, who will go through the financials. We will then come back to Will, who will give you an update on U.S. International, and then I will give you an update on what is happening in Germany since we have a lot of changes going on there, and pass that to Jeff as well. With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff.
Thanks, Jay. I'll start today's call with the Safe Harbor. During today's call, we'll discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including non-GAAP net income per diluted share, which includes adjustments to reverse the effect of disposals of non-operating assets, foreign currency-related gains and losses, and certain income tax benefits related to accounting for stock option exercises. We've provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures on our website under the Investor Relations link and in our press release issued yesterday. We believe the presentation of these non-GAAP measures, together with our corresponding GAAP measures, is relevant in assessing Copart's business trends and financial performance. We analyze our results on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis described above.
In addition, this call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, which are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied by our statements and comments. For a more complete discussion of the risks that could affect our business, please review the Management's Discussion and Analysis portions in our related periodic reports filed with the SEC. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time on our behalf. Turning our attention first to the first quarter of fiscal 2019, we achieved a record first quarter in unit sales revenue, gross profit, and operating income. The period presents a somewhat noisy comparison in comparison to the first quarter of last year, given the events of Hurricane Harvey last year and Florence and Michael this year.
We'll provide metrics during this call with and without those events to provide you a cleaner comparison. Starting at the top line, our global revenue grew 10.1% year over year. Excluding those three hurricanes I just mentioned, revenue would've been 15.1% instead. We were burdened by an unfavorable year-over-year currency effect on revenue of $2.3 million on foreign operations, primarily due to the relative strength of the U.S. dollar in comparison to the pound and the Brazilian real. Our global service revenue of 5.5%, again, excluding those three hurricanes, global service revenue would have grown at 11% instead. Purchased car growth was 48%, split approximately equally between U.S. and internationally in terms of the absolute growth. The growth U.S. was driven by a mix of things, including NDA and Co-Correct. Internationally, our growth was driven by the UV and also by Renee.
As you know from following Copart, our actual Copart-owned inventory is still relatively modest, with $19.7 million at quarter end, small in the context of our overall business since purchaser revenue is reflective of the gross value while our service revenue reflects only the net. Our global unit sales grew 4.1% year over year, with U.S. unit growth of 2.4% and international unit growth of 14.3%. Excluding those three hurricanes, our global unit sales growth would have been 5.6%, with U.S. growth at 4.2% and the international growth, of course, unchanged. Our nominal global inventory decreased year over year at 1.5%, but excluding those three hurricanes, our global inventory was up 10% year over year in comparing the October ending balance versus the October ending balance of a year ago. Turning to our gross profit.
Gross profit grew from $163.3 million a year ago to $195.9 million this year, or 20% growth. As you may recall, the first quarter of 2018 was burdened by Hurricane Harvey, which represented a net drag on the quarter of $17.2 million of the gross profit line. The first quarter of 2019 is likewise burdened by expenses related to hurricanes Florence and Michael, which collectively represented $4 million of gross profit loss in the quarter. We have not treated this event as a, quote, "extraordinary event." We believe that storm readiness and response is an essential service that we provide to our customers. And although catastrophic events tend to be unprofitable for Copart, and in the case of major storms like these, substantially so, we believe our commitment to exceptional service in these events distinguishes Copart from the competition.
Excluding these three events from gross profit in both periods would have yielded gross profit growth of 11% or meaningful leverage on our unit growth of 5.6%. Our gross margin rate increased from 39% to 42.5% for an increase of 350 basis points. That, of course, includes the burden of Hurricane Harvey a year ago, as well as Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael this year. Excluding all three of those events, gross margin rate would have declined slightly, approximately 180 basis points, with a strong majority of that decline attributable to the mix shift in purchased cars. On ASPs, I'll provide just a quick headline with Will to provide much more color thereafter. Our ASPs grew 13.1% in the U.S., despite lapping a strong ASP growth quarter a year ago in the first quarter of 2018 of also 13% or thereabouts.
Turning to our general and administrative expenses, ex stock compensation and depreciation grew from $29.5 million a year ago to $34.8 million. U.S. growth in this respect of $3.8 million. Largely related to costs associated with supporting our growth initiatives as well as certain litigation costs. The $1.5 million increase internationally is largely related to the expansion of our European business. As we have repeatedly said, our general and administrative expenses will grow over time with inflation and complexity, but we continue to believe we can achieve operating leverage over time, given strong top-line growth. Our GAAP operating income grew from $123.9 million to $151.4 million, or growth of 22%. Excluding the hurricanes, operating income would have grown at approximately 10% year-over-year. Our net interest expense was down due to a lower net debt balance.
Our first quarter income tax rate of 23.3% is a reflection of the lower U.S. federal tax rate you heard us talk about on prior calls. We are now at a 21% U.S. federal tax rate for the full fiscal year 2019. Our GAAP net income increased from $77.5 million a year ago to $114.1 million this year, or growth of 47% year-over-year. As I'm sure you recall, we experienced a somewhat complex quarter in the fourth quarter. The first quarter is relatively straightforward in comparison, with very limited non-GAAP adjustments to net income, and therefore the net income of $77.1 million a year ago in comparison to $113.6 million this year is similar, with growth of 47% year-over-year. One last topic. Turning our attention to the balance sheet and cash flow statement.
I'll pause here to talk about Revenue Recognition 606, or the Rev 606 new accounting standard. This is the first quarter in which we've implemented those new revenue recognition principles, which reflects largely a reversion to how Copart previously accounted for its revenue prior to the implementation of Rev 605 in fiscal 2011. Under the new accounting standard, to oversimplify, we will largely recognize revenue in connection with a particular vehicle at the time of its auction, including, for example, services we provide with respect to inbound towing and title processing. The one-time cumulative adjustment to retained earnings is a reduction of $23 million. Certain revenue and corresponding costs that had been recognized in Q4 and previously under the prior accounting standards are now recognized in Q1 and beyond.
While revenue and corresponding costs that previously would have been recognized in Q1 are instead deferred to Q2 and beyond. The long and short of it is that the net effect on our P&L in Q1 was not material in terms of either revenue or our profit metrics. The new revenue recognition standards also affect our balance sheet in non-cash ways. For example, because we will not recognize revenue as earned until the time of auction as a general matter, certain of our accounts receivables that we would previously have booked in Q1 will now instead be booked in Q2. On our balance sheet, you'll see the AR balance will nominally reflect a decrease of $16 million, but the change in cash from the cash flow statement on accounts receivable of $29.3 million is a more accurate reflection of like-to-like AR growth year over year.
The same logic applies to vehicle pooling costs. We will now defer more of our costs into Q2 and have quote, "deferred costs from Q4 that we've now recognized in Q1 and subsequent periods." As a result, VPC growth on our balance sheet of $39 million significantly outpaces like-for-like VPC growth of $13.6 million as reflected on our cash flow statement. On cash flow itself, we generated operating cash flow for the quarter of $107.7 million, with CapEx of $62 million and change. A little over half, or 55%, of our CapEx was attributable to capacity expansion and lease buyouts, with the balance attributable to yard equipment, IT, and other. With that, I'll turn it over to Will for more color on the business.
Thank you, Jeff. I'll now provide a few comments about our operational performance for the quarter, where we once again delivered a very strong quarter. In the U.S., our volume grew by 4.3% when adjusted for all cat activity, which includes Hurricane Harvey last year and Hurricanes Florence and Michael this year. Our volume growth continues to be driven by organic growth and market wins within the insurance market and a continued expansion into the non-insurance markets. Organic growth in the salvage market continues to be driven by, we believe, an increase in total loss frequency as higher repair costs are leading to a higher percentage of accidents resulting in an economic total loss. We continue to aggressively develop our non-insurance business, which include franchise and independent dealers, finance companies and leasing companies, fleets, charities, municipalities, equipment dealers, and wholesalers.
The growth in volume was spread broadly across multiple seller segments. Volume from dealers was up 29%, finance companies 11%, wholesalers 54%, rental car companies 30%, and fleet and industrial equipment up 77%. The only segments in which we experienced declines were charities and municipalities, as we intentionally restricted our sales and marketing activities in these low-profit segments. We have successfully grown our non-insurance volume as we develop better systems integration into fleet, bank, and dealership operating systems, developed more focused internal programs targeting the specific operational needs of individual segments, and as we continue to increase the returns that we are delivering to our non-insurance sellers. In total, our U.S. non-insurance volume grew by 14% and 44% over the same quarter last year and the same quarter two years ago.
However, excluding charities and municipalities, our non-insurance volume grew by 30% and 116% for the same quarters. In total, non-insurance business represented approximately 25% of our total U.S. volume. In the U.S., our service revenue per car, excluding the impact of Hurricane Harvey, on a quarter basis was up almost 6%. The increase in revenue per car was due primarily to higher ASPs, which grew by 12.7%, as more than half of our total revenue per car is tied to the ultimate selling price of the vehicle. The increase in ASPs were driven by a number of factors. A 4.5% increase in the value of used cars as measured by the Manheim Index, which in October reached the 140 mark for the first time. A 15.2% increase in the value of crushed car bodies.
Beneficial mix of cars sold as non-insurance cars and power sports vehicles are generally run and drive and yield a higher selling price. The increase of our digital marketing activity and the continuing trend of insurance companies totaling newer, more valuable, and less severely damaged vehicles. We continue to expand our remarketing activities and to enhance our auction platform. On a quarter-over basis, the number of unique bidders was up almost 25%, and the increase in number of bids received per lot was up almost 6%. Our outreach to international buyers continues. Our U.S. website is now translated into seven languages. These languages are native to 135 countries. We now sell cars from our U.S. yards to 147 countries. Despite the headwinds caused by the stronger dollar, buying activity from international buyers on a quarter-over basis increased. Total sales to international buyers was over 23%.
When we include all export activity, including buyers with domestic addresses who only export, our international market represents over 34% of all units sold. We believe these activities contributed to the record U.S. ASPs and auction return percentages. Now turning to our international operations. Our revenue grew from $68 million to $90.2 million, or 32.5%. International service revenues grew from $42.7 million to $51.2 million or 19.9%, while purchased car revenue grew from $25.3 million to $38.9 million or 53.9%. EBIT grew from $17.9 million to $21.1 million or 18%, as purchased car revenue inherently yields a lower margin per vehicle. Volume grew by 14.3%, driven primarily by growth in the U.K., Germany, and Brazil. Jeff and Jay will provide far more detailed comments on our progress in Germany later in the call. Globally, we are seeing rising diesel fuel prices, labor, and health insurance costs.
Nevertheless, when adjusting for the abnormal costs associated with Hurricane Harvey last year and Hurricanes Florence and Michael this year, our average cost to process each car grew by only 2.7% in the U.S., at 3.5% worldwide over the same quarter last year. In total, the incremental cost this quarter associated with Hurricanes Florence and Michael was approximately $4.3 million. To provide the cat support our insurance customers come to expect, we must make financial commitments early in the cat process. Accordingly, before the storm hits, we obtain and we stage equipment and people. We obtain additional land capacity, and we arrange for additional sub-haul capacity. We do this on a scale appropriate for the worst possible scenario. For Hurricanes Florence and Michael, we relocated 180 people, 75 loaders. We arranged for an additional 500 trucks for sub-haul capacity, and we committed to 17 new temporary property leases.
We'd like to acknowledge the outstanding work of our CAT teams and to reinforce Copart's continued commitments of supporting our insurance customers during all CAT activity. Our CAT-adjusted inventory was up in the U.S. internationally and worldwide by 10.4%, 14.1%, and 10.9% respectively. The growth in U.S. inventory suggests a continuation of our double-digit quarterly volume growth expectations. Accordingly, we remain extremely active in our yard expansion program to accommodate the growth and in support of our effort to provide permanent CAT capacity in CAT regions. During the last quarter, we entered into 21 land purchase and lease contracts. We closed on 11 contracts. In North America, we are currently engaged in 26 land development projects representing over 1,200 acres of capacity. That concludes my brief comments. We'll turn the call back over to our CEO, Jay Adair, for further comment.
Thank you, Will. Good morning again, everyone. Before we discuss Germany, I'd like to give you an overview of the U.K. We knew 15 years ago that we needed to be a global business to win. We entered the U.K. in June of 2007 with an acquisition of a small company that had three locations called Century Salvage. Shortly after that, we purchased Universal Salvage, giving us nine locations across the U.K. Today we have 15 locations that allow us to pick up quickly and economically across the U.K. To win, we knew we needed a network of locations. We grew the business organically by winning new business, by opening additional yards, and through some future acquisitions. For those of you that have followed us over the years, you know that we used to act as principal on the vast majority of the insurance cars that we sold in the U.K.
At the beginning, we didn't have the track record in the U.K. that we obviously had in the U.S., we were happy to buy cars and make money in the process. Over time, we simply showed the carriers the favorable spreads that we were generating on our trades. In doing that, they shifted to a consignment model instead of selling their vehicles to us. We do this because it is better to be on the side of our customers as a partner rather than as a vendor purchasing vehicles. Copart U.K. is the number one place to go to buy a salvage vehicle in the U.K., selling well over 300,000 units a year and generating the highest returns in the market. To deliver on the Copart promise in Germany, we need a network of yards, a marketplace, people, and the technology to deliver on that promise.
I'm happy to say that we're there today in Germany. Because Will is focused on running the U.S., Jeff has been able to spend a lot of time working on Germany to get us to this point. I'd like to turn it over to Jeff now to give you an update on the German operations, and I'd like to thank all those that were involved in the last six months in Germany on making the success that we've seen happen for Copart. Jeff?
Thanks, Jay. On the topic of Germany, you've heard piecemeal from us, of course, over the years. As promised on the first quarter call, we wanted to take this opportunity to describe the opportunity and our status in greater detail. I'll start first with a description of the German industry more broadly. The German insurance market, auto insurance market, operates very differently from the U.K. and the U.S. with respect to total loss claims. In the U.S., for example, when you as a covered policyholder total your car, the insurance company effectively buys the car from you, and what happens thereafter is invisible. As you know, the insurance company then consigns the car through Copart and keeps the proceeds of the auction. In Germany, by contrast, nearly every car in an accident, even a mangled one, is owner-retained.
When an accident occurs, the insurance company estimates how much value the policyholder has lost by comparing the pre-accident value, or PAV, of the car with the post-accident residual value of the vehicle and pays the policyholder that loss of value. How does the insurance company assess that post-accident value? The carrier registers the car on multiple listing services. It affects miniature auctions on which buyers bid for vehicles. The insurance company generally then chooses the highest bid from across all of these listing services to be the, quote, "residual value" from which the indemnity payment is calculated and then paid to the policyholder. The policyholder then has a 21-day auction period to sell the vehicle to the listing service auction, quote, "winner" at the residual value just established. There's a catch. These listing services are a really tough experience for the buyers themselves.
First, buyers are obligated to honor their bids for a full 21 days after bidding, tying up their capital. Second, the buyers have the obligation to buy the car, but the owner of the vehicle does not have an obligation to sell it to them, creating a fairly severe adverse selection problem. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, they will ultimately close on fewer than one in 10 vehicles on which they are the, quote, "winning bidder" on a listing service. That makes it impossible to plan their own dismantling and rebuilding business, and of course, further complicates tying up capital on cars you largely won't win. The punchline is that buyers are constrained by their capital and how many vehicles they can bid on, and given adverse selection, will bid depressed values for cars. Who ultimately loses in this inefficient process?
Insurance carriers are establishing their indemnity payments or their financial losses on claims based on what is an artificially depressed residual value. The cost is paid by them and ultimately by German policyholders who have to cover excess loss costs with their premiums. Let's turn our attention to Copart Germany's evolution. In 2012, recognizing that we needed to understand the market firsthand, we acquired Wreck Online Marketplace, one of the leading listing services in Germany. In 2016, we opened our first auction location in Germany in Bad Fallingbostel near Hanover. On our last earnings call, we talked about evolving our strategy in Germany as well. That evolution, in short, is as follows. We intend to pursue insurance company consignments in parallel with our efforts to purchase cars on our listing service.
In the past, when we've entered new markets, as Jay just described, in the U.K., for example, in 2007, and in the charities business in the U.S., we have sometimes established our presence by buying cars first. We intend to move very quickly to build the infrastructure that advantages Copart in our more mature markets. That includes the land that enables us to store cars efficiently. I'll talk more about land in a moment. Trucks and a geographic footprint that enables us to tow cars economically, and vehicle auction volume that attracts buyers and sellers alike. In 2018 so far, we have announced our next six locations. That physical footprint is critical because it enables fast pickup across the entire country, an essential capability in a competitive marketplace for cars. It enables cost-efficient pickups.
As you've heard us describe in the U.S. in the past, every yard reduces towing costs and improves pickup times. Because every yard is closer to some of the cars than our current network would be. Lastly, it's worth noting the importance of buyer convenience. Because the majority of the cars that we sell through Copart Germany auctions are purchased by foreign buyers outside of Germany, having yards enables our buyers to accumulate vehicles and pick them up more efficiently in larger batches. Regarding our progress beyond land, we are purchasing and selling vehicles in Germany at a meaningful positive spread at our Copart auction locations. Every car we buy and sell adds to our knowledge base and improves our ability to buy and sell the next subsequent car. Our intention is to run biweekly auctions at each of the sites we have announced, with more to come.
We're hiring staff for our yards as well as drivers for our trucking network. We'll use a combination of owned trucks and third-party sub-haulers to build out our logistics network. We've deployed our next generation IT system, which we call Cobalt, in Germany as well. Ultimately, we believe that the strategy we're pursuing in Germany is broadly applicable with some local refinements to the other large economies in Western Europe. We started with a buyer in Germany, and let's finish there as well. For the first time in Germany, the Copart Germany model will deliver an actual certain auction process. A buyer who bids on a car and provides the highest bid on a vehicle will ultimately own the car. We, for the buyer's benefits, now have the logistics benefit of multiple locations at which a buyer can store cars until they efficiently pick them up.
As a general practice over the past 25 years or so, we tend to tell you what we've done after the fact, as opposed to promising it in advance. We'll continue to honor that approach in general, but we recognize that Germany and Western Europe are substantial enough opportunities to warrant a more substantial check-in as we have provided today. We look forward to growing our business in Germany for many years to come. We're energized by the progress and momentum in Germany thus far and are excited by the size of the opportunities ahead of us. With that, we'll turn it back to the moderator for Q&A.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we would like to open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypads now. Again, that is star one to ask a question. Our first question will come from Craig Kennison, Baird.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question, and thanks for the terrific summary on Germany. I had a question on the consumer experience in Germany. How does a German consumer find out about Copart or your listing service? Is there anything you need to do to promote the service in ways that you don't have to promote it in the U.S.?
The consumer, Craig, I would argue, is a participant today in the total loss process, as you heard us just describe. The insurance carrier provides them with an indemnification payment for their loss, then hands them the details of an offer provided by a third party. It's then the consumer's responsibility to orchestrate that subsequent sale of the car to that winning bidder from the listing service. If anything, in Germany today, the consumer is arguably too involved in that process. You can imagine that trying to orchestrate the sale of a one-off vehicle from your home or from a repair shop to an individual you have never known in the past and will never see again in the future, who may in fact even be picking up a car from a foreign country, is a complicated endeavor.
I don't think that Copart's branding among consumers is essential in Germany. I think building our network and building our credibility with insurance companies and certainly with buyers, which I think you know we already have tremendous credibility with an international buyer base, that's much more important than winning the hearts and minds of consumers individually.
If you think of all of the totaled cars in Germany, to what extent are you getting a listing opportunity on those cars? What's your market share of listing opportunities, if you will, in Germany?
That's frankly hard to quantify, Craig, in part because for every car that does experience a severe accident like that, the carriers, generally speaking, will list the car on multiple services. WOM or Wreck Online Marketplace, the business I described a few moments ago, is certainly one of a handful of clear market leaders. Our market share position I'd describe as strong without being able to quantify it precisely.
The final question on Germany here. Obviously, you are purchasing a higher percentage of cars there to more or less kickstart liquidity. Can you give us a feel for the economics of that and how quickly you can turn a car? If you invest a few thousand dollars in a car, how quickly does that car turn over? Thank you.
It turns over reasonably quickly. The titling process is certainly not more complicated than it is in the U.S., for example, so the turnover isn't a challenge per se. The economics, I think the punchline is that we have been able to buy the cars on these listing services, subject to the same adverse selection problems I just described for the marketplace broadly, then turn and sell them to Copart Germany and earn positive profits in the process of doing so. I think the sample size at this point is probably not large enough to provide a very detailed unit economic P&L picture, but the punchline is we are able to make money. It's evidence then that the current listing service model is inefficient and costing carriers and policyholders more than it should.
Thanks for the detailed overview.
Thanks.
Thank you very much. Our next question will come from Bob Labick, CJS Securities.
Lee Jagoda for Bob. Good morning.
Good morning.
Following up on Germany, I take it you guys have about 11 yards in Germany today. What do you think you need to be fully built out in Germany, and how long do you think that process could take before we see multiple insurers actually buy in?
Were you ready?
Yes.
Okay. Well, we've announced to date eight locations, correct?
Seven.
Seven. Okay. We've announced seven locations, and we will end up announcing 12 by the time we're done. I would argue we've got enough of a network now we can handle cars. We've got more than enough capacity. We can pick vehicles up quickly, and we're not picking them up economically yet, but we'll be there very soon. I'd say within 90 days, we'll have the economics right that we'll be happy with what it's costing to get a vehicle picked up. The next step's the marketplace. By acquiring all these vehicles, as Jeff said, we're getting a strong feel for what they're worth so we can be even more competitive, buying more vehicles and making a spread on those vehicles.
That will improve, what's more important than really buying vehicles and making a spread is that we're creating a marketplace where our customers, when they come to Copart, they are guaranteed to get that car. This is not about going on a platform and one out of 100 times I submit a bid, I end up getting the car because most of the time I am outbid. I do not know it, then when I am high bidder, the insurer decides not to sell it to me because they flipped it to the dealer, to somebody else, through adverse selection. This is a sure thing, guaranteed that when I bid on Copart, I will get the car. All of our auctions, or I should say the majority of the cars that we are selling at auction are not on reserve.
There are no reserve auctions, or if you bid, you own it. That has been our focus. Our focus has not been on getting insurance companies to come on board yet because it is about building the network. It is about building the logistics. It is about having the marketplace where buyers are coming every single day and finding product and buying that product.
By doing all that, there are people in our technology who will then go to insurance companies and show them our spreads, very similar to what I said in my opening comments, that we are going to show them the spreads we are making and say, "Why are not you just processing it this way instead of doing it through the platforms?" Additionally, as Jeff said, this is one of the biggest parts for me, it is not only that we think there is money being left on the table through an inefficient marketplace, that is why they list literally their major insurers that list on all three of the major platforms because they will get different bids through the platforms. That piece is important.
To me, what is more important is that in Germany, you are telling the insurer that your vehicle is worth EUR 30,000 prior to the accident, and it is now worth EUR 10,000 after the accident, and you are giving them a check for EUR 20,000 and telling them to dispose of the vehicle to a buyer that they have no idea what the process is. Not only do they have the option of selling to that buyer, then they have got someone that is at the shop or maybe the vehicle is at their home, and they have got an adjuster that is talking to them or an appraiser, and they are working all these to figure out who should I sell the vehicle to in the end and have to deal with that.
Clearly, it is our belief that if they're given a check for EUR 30,000 and the vehicle's picked up and disposed of and they never have to deal with it's a far superior customer experience from the insurance company's perspective and from the insured's perspective.
No, that makes all the sense in the world. Just so I'm clear, though, how many, if any, insurance companies are currently participating on your platform today? As outsiders, what are the next milestones we should be looking for?
We have a few, I'd say three, maybe four customers that are starting to utilize the website now to sell vehicles. It's not in any way material yet. They're more wanting to try some recovered theft vehicles, some hail damage vehicles, etc. , to dispose of those vehicles. There's a transformation that has to take place where they're not just dealing with inventory that they're stuck with in the sense of recovered theft or hail damage, but that they actually say that this is the process going forward. Again, I really can't state it enough. Jeff and I and the rest of the team have been making a number of trips to Germany in the last six months, and I can't tell you how confident I am that we're going to see insurers that will switch their process. It's just the numbers don't lie.
When you look at the returns we're getting on vehicles and you see the amount of times that the insured sells the vehicle somewhere other than the platform, those two combined, plus the experience for the customer, I think you're going to see in the next six months some customers switching their process and converting to Copart in the Copart model.
That sounds great. Thank you very much for the color.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much. Our next question will come from Stephanie Benjamin, SunTrust.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the question. I just kind of wanted to go back and again on Germany and kind of thinking through here. Obviously, there's a lot that's been done in the last year from building the infrastructure, the IT system, and just what I'm assuming a lot of investments in the initiative. just kind of rethink going forward. Should we be expecting significantly more investments, or this is the run rate and to look at it this point going forward or just trying to get a gauge on where we are from just an investment standpoint?
Lastly, I just wanted to follow up on the last question, just thinking about, if you have received any pushback for insurance companies or any reason so far where maybe they're just not getting it or why they wouldn't immediately switch, just considering the returns you can show them. That would be great. Thanks again.
Thanks, Stephanie. I think as you know, we tend not to provide any forward-looking guidance on any aspect of our P&L revenue cost or otherwise. In short, I think you can tell from this description today that we have made real strides in Germany, but still have meaningful growth aspirations from here as well. Certainly our hope is that we are investing much more capital, because as a reflection then of ongoing growth in the business. I don't think we're prepared to quantify that for you in any meaningful way today. As to your second question about any resistance from the insurance carriers. I don't think there is a lack of willingness or interest. I think the point is that a model like the one in Germany has evolved for a reason, and there are tax and regulatory and commercial practices that have been longstanding in Germany.
This is a radically different model, I think very clearly superior. It certainly will take time to prove to them, as Jay was describing via the principal car purchase path, that the economics are overwhelming. There is no resistance per se. I'd say strong interest, strong curiosity in our model.
Great. I appreciate the color. Thanks again.
Thank you very much. Our next question will come from Daniel Imbro, Stephens Inc.
Hey, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Wanted to follow up, a quick one on Germany. I think you guys mentioned there are three major platforms in the German market, but given the higher returns that you're generating with your model, do any of the incumbent players have the ability or desire to change strategy as they see you guys succeeding in that market?
We haven't seen any indication that they are, that they have the desire, and I think we have a fairly strongly held belief that they wouldn't have the ability regardless. Recall that a majority of the buyers at Copart Germany today are international. That's on the backs of Copart's global reputation, on the backs of Copart's already established international buyer base. If somebody tried to replicate that from scratch solely for the purposes of having a more competitive listing service in Germany, I think that'd be a tall order. No, there's no indication that they have endeavored to do so and there's some skepticism anyway on our part that they could.
Okay. Staying over there in Europe with Brexit in the U.K. right now, can you maybe just talk through how you guys think different outcomes could play out in your business? For one, what % of the U.K. business is exported to continental Europe and how a potential Brexit outcome could change or disrupt your U.K. operations?
I think you saw some of the disruption a couple of years ago, a year ago with wild currency fluctuations. That certainly affects our business as you know, in multiple ways. When the pound is weaker, the earnings are reflected on our P&L at a much lower U.S. dollar rate. That said, I think Brexit clearly remains very much TBD as to the portion of cars that are sold outside the U.K. I don't think we've disclosed that number, but it's meaningful. There are cars in the U.K. that go to other places within Europe, in fact, beyond Europe as well. We expect trade to continue of those cars and precisely what tariffs and under what regime will ultimately emerge, I think remains to be seen.
Okay, great. One last one, moving back to the U.S. business. We seem to have seen U.S. salvage industry growth slowing a little bit, and part of that is noise from the cat events, but even so, shaking out the quarter of the mid-single-digit range. What are you guys seeing in the industry today? Has your volume outlook that you previously indicated of kind of high-single-digit industry growth, has that changed at all? Thanks.
Not really. It may have moderated slightly, given the difficulty in getting land, we really haven't reduced our efforts in expansion in any meaningful manner. These trends, we try not to react on quarterly changes and trends. We think that in the long run that we're going to see increases in total loss frequency just because of all the dynamics that you all heard about. Pre- and post-repair inspections and scans and more complex cars and younger cars, all that intuitively leads us to the conclusion that total loss frequency will continue to grow.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Chris Bottiglieri, Wolfe Research.
Hi, thanks for taking the questions. This first one, the global inventory ex cat was up 10% or ex hurricanes, you want to call it that way, and volume is up four. I guess how many points of the inventory growth was from international? Then like what else would you attribute the accelerated exit rate from?
I think we gave that. International is up 14% U.S. is up 10.4%.
Got it.
higher growth rate internationally.
Okay. Why such strong growth and inventory growth in the U.S. looking forward? What do you see that's driving that?
Well, we don't predict. We can look at the backwards and say that our average volume growth rate over the last 17 quarters has been 10%. While there'll be natural fluctuations from quarter to quarter, we really don't see influences change significantly that have driven that thus far. We think it's going to be in that range.
Got you. Okay. I'm trying to understand the European market a little bit better, both on the supply side and the demand side. At this point, since you're not sourcing from the insurers, is the super majority of your purchases coming from listing services? What would the mix like of your own Wreck listing service versus the third-party ones?
All our own.
All your own.
You heard Jay describe a handful of customers who are consigning cars to us. Still the strong majority of the cars sold in Copart Germany today are cars purchased on our listing service.
Got you. Okay. Demand side. Can you talk about the customer mix, how that might differ from what you see in the U.S.? Can you give us a sense of I don't think there's a very big salvage part industry in Europe yet today. Could you maybe talk about how the buyers are different and kind of how you see that evolving if you do continue to meet this market?
I think the buyers are ultimately somewhat similar because they are from outside of Germany. Some of the countries that are meaningful buyers even of Copart U.S. cars today have become the buyers of Copart Germany vehicles as well. They are no doubt dismantling a portion of the cars for parts and are no doubt rebuilding a good number of them to be put back on the road as well.
Got you. Okay. Thanks for the help.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Our next question will come from Gary Prestopino at Barrington Research.
Good morning, everyone. Will, you cited various categories of growth in the non-insurance side. I got it was dealers were up 29%. Could you give me the other segments and the growth that you saw there? I couldn't quite that.
Sure. Finance companies, which includes banks and leasing companies, was up 11%.
Okay.
Wholesalers, up 54%. Rental car companies was up 30%.
Fleet and industrial equipment companies were up 77%.
Okay. Thank you. You had 25% of your total U.S. volume in this quarter was non-insurance. What was the percentage last year? Do you have that handy?
I do. It was a little over 22%.
Okay. Just with these non-insurance cars, I would assume that they get sold a hell of a lot faster than the salvage vehicles. You don't have to clear title and settle with an insurance company on that. As these grow as a percentage of your U.S. cars sold, does that kind of somewhat distort your inventory growth in a sense of that these cars are flushing out a lot quicker versus the salvage cars?
It can. Each segment that we talked about has its own profile, its own characteristics. While you might make assumptions about a quicker cycle time overall, some segments are actually a slower cycle time. In general, you're right. It has, as a group, a quicker cycle time and therefore increases the velocity of our yards and improves the utility of our land.
Okay. Then just so I make sure I'm understanding Germany. Germany, it's an owner retained. You're actually still going to the owner and buying the car, correct? The insurance company is not retaining the car in what you're doing.
Correct.
Okay. All right. I know, Jay, you mentioned that obviously you're going to try and employ the same strategy that you used in the U.K. to move from principal to agency over time. Are there any U.K. insurers that are writing in Germany right now that could maybe take the lead in this and kind of start nudging the German insurance companies towards going to this contingent basis?
Yeah. Gary, we're just in the process right now of preparing the data to share it. Our approach has been very simple. We felt without a marketplace and without a network, we couldn't offer an insurer who has a vehicle in Munich our service and then have to tow it six hours north up to Hanover. We've got the network now, we've got results of the auctions that we can share, and it's really about sharing that data in the next 90 days.
One of the most compelling parts of this to me is, yeah, we're making a spread and you can see that, and that's great, one of the most compelling parts is the fact that when they're high bidder on one of the platforms, when a buyer is high bidder on one of the platforms, that is the high bidder that's given to the insured, that the majority of the time the insured doesn't sell it to them. There's a whole secondary auction that's taking place once the platform. The platform price is the number that the insurance company uses. That's the number that they're saying, "Okay, your car's worth $10,000. It was $30,000 before the accident.
Here's a check for 20, and this buyer will buy it off you." The majority of the time, the insured does not sell it to that buyer. Instead, they go out into the secondary market. Through people that work at the BMW dealership that's doing the repair, through other sources, they're going out because it came out to them. It's not too hard in Germany, we figured that out. It's not too hard in Germany to figure out where a damaged. Obviously, in the U.S., I'll give the example, it's not too hard to figure out where a damaged Ferrari is in Dallas. There's not that many dealerships. When you get into Germany, it's not that hard to figure out where a damaged BMW or Mercedes is in Munich.
You can make phone calls and talk to them, or you even have a route where you just walk into the dealerships, and you look at the salvage, and they put you in touch with the insurance, and you're buying that product off of them for more than the platform bid. This is really about showing the insurance company it's not only a better service for the insured, but it's about showing them that there's this whole secondary auction. It's an inefficient marketplace. The biggest frustration, we talk to our buyers, why do they love Copart so much? The biggest frustration is they bid on the platforms, and the majority of the time they don't get the car. They bid on Copart, a 100% of the time they get the car. That allows a buyer to know exactly what they're going to repair.
If they need parts, they've got the parts. If they're going to do a rebuild, they've got the vehicle for rebuild. They can store it at Copart for the next two weeks while they build a run and send a truck out to pick nine cars up and haul them back to Poland. The benefits there are really obvious, and it's just about us, in the next 90 days, articulating that now to customers.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thanks.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to prompt for our final portion of questions. If you do have a question, you may press star one on your telephone keypad now. Again, that is star one to ask a question. Our next question will come from Jamie Albertine, Consumer Edge.
Thank you so much. Good morning to everybody. Great details on Germany. A lot of questions, obviously, already. I know you don't give guidance, so I wanted to ask sort of a rearward-looking question here a little bit. Can you tell us, rather, if you're on plan or if you're slightly ahead of plan with respect to what you'd budgeted for growth in Germany? The reason I ask, given the radical change you're bringing to the market and the tax and regulatory setup, I want to understand what the impetus may have been, whether it's consolidation of buyers or sellers or what have you, that may have accelerated the investment there in Germany. If we could think about the rest of Europe potentially being a little bit faster as that market consolidates over time.
Okay. Well, I think the big change is that we have spent the last two years trying to understand the marketplace with a single location. It's a learning process, is the first part I'd say. You've got to learn how the market works, and there's been a lot of us trying to figure out, okay, why is our buyer on our platform the high bidder, and they don't get the car? Then you eventually realize, as you reach out and make phone calls and talk to people, you find out and you kind of decipher how the marketplace works. That's how we've now come to the conclusion that there's a secondary auction that takes place and a bunch of other facts that we know about the marketplace.
I would say that it's a big investment in time, and it's a big investment in dollars, and we wanted to make sure that we knew that our model in our minds would work. We came to that conclusion this year, and that's why we opened up so many locations to build a network of facilities where we can pick cars up quickly, store them, liquidate them at auction, and replicate that process over and over and over. It was really about being prudent in our approach upfront and learning, and we've spent the last two years doing that, and now we're in a very quick pace to accelerate the market in terms of units going through auction and accelerate the market in terms of getting clients to convert now to the Copart model. This is simple math, right?
They're going to convert, and the insured's going to be happier that they don't have to deal with a buyer coming in at 8:00 at night to pick the vehicle up. That's a win. They're going to see net promoter score increases from a customer service standpoint. They're going to see more money in their pocket because they're not losing the vehicle in the secondary auction. This should benefit the insured and benefit the insurance company. Our research so far proves that to be the case. Did you want to add to that?
Maybe as a quick follow-up then, Jay, if I may. Given the progress you've made, the learnings, and the breakthrough you've had, or it seems that you're having in Germany, does that lower the degree of difficulty to go laterally kind of across Europe o r will you have to effectively start over in a similar way as you did in Germany if you were to shift into other markets? Then if I can ask one of Jeff, you talked about the economics. You said it's profitable. Look, your ROIC over time, I would guess this is a very compelling opportunity economically. From a modeling perspective, and there's no guidance here, but wanted to get a sense, this must be coming on as sort of dilutive to your corporate EBITDA margins near term, I would imagine. Is that a fair assessment while you're maturing in that market?
Let me tackle those questions individually. First is your question as to the rest of Western Europe. It's certainly the case that we're building the muscle memory now to understand how to roll out in a market with its own level of nuances and its own refinements. Certainly our ability to succeed in Germany will inform our approaches in other countries. There will be additional work to be done. It's not simply replicating the next morning in Spain or in France or otherwise. I think we will have enhanced our capabilities and enhanced our reputation, and the friction should be lower for the next iterations of this approach.
As for the profitability of the model, I first note that given the principal nature of it, I suppose if you wanted to literally talk about the math, because they're principal cars, they are clearly diluted to the margin rates, both on the gross line and the operating profit line. As for how the balance of it will evolve over time, I think we'll just ask you to be patient to see in future quarters. We're not in a position to provide a forecast.
No, understood and appreciated. Best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our final question will come from Bret Jordan, Jefferies.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Good morning.
My star one was broken. Hey, I might have missed this. Did you size the German market? How many cars total there annually?
We haven't. We characterize it as substantially larger than the U.K. market, for example, just by comparison. I think if you look at the metrics, whether it's population, GDP, per capita GDP, etc. , I think we believe it's meaningfully larger than the U.K., and we view the Western European market collectively as being similar or larger than the U.S.
Okay, great. A question on the non-insurance U.S. vehicles. Do a higher percentage of those go to export in the sense that there's less concern around a condition report on what is essentially a whole car? Is your export mix shifting as that mix shifts?
Certainly some are appropriate for our export market. I would say that without knowing exactly, because I haven't looked it up, I wouldn't think it'd be too materially different than our normal export %. 35% is probably an appropriate expectation.
Right. Directionally probably a little bit higher simply because the scrap cars are sold in state, right? A local car that's going to be melted down pretty much right away will be sold within a pretty narrow radius of the location of the yard. Simply by virtue of dealer cars generally not being melted down, there's probably a higher mix to go export, I don't think the difference will be dramatic.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we have no further questions in the queue, so I'd like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.
All right. Thanks, Chantelle. Thank you everyone for attending the first quarter call for Copart, and we look forward to reporting on next year and wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, this conference has now concluded. You may disconnect your phone lines and have a great rest of the week. Thank you.