Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Copart, Inc. fourth 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, Jonathan. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the fourth quarter earnings call for Copart. Before I start, I'm going to turn it over to Jeff Liaw for opening remarks, and then I'll give you some commentary, turn it back to Jeff for an update, and then we'll open it up for Q&A. With that, let me turn it over to Jeff.
Terrific. Thanks, Jay. I'll start with our safe harbor. During today's call, we'll discuss certain non-GAAP measures, including non-GAAP net income per diluted common share, which includes adjustments to reverse the effect of the impact of income taxes on the deemed repatriation of foreign earnings, net of deferred tax charges, certain discrete income tax items, disposals of non-operating assets, impairment of long-lived assets, acquisition related fees and integration charges, reserves for legacy sales tax liabilities, foreign currency-related gains and losses, certain income tax benefits and payroll taxes related to accounting for stock option exercises, and the effect on common equivalent shares from ASU 2016-09. 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. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time on our behalf. 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. Now we'll turn our attention to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019 for Copart.
We are pleased with our results in booking a record fourth quarter in revenue, gross profit and operating income. Our global worldwide revenue grew 20.8% year-over-year for the fourth quarter, despite unfavorable currency effects of $3.9 million or thereabouts from foreign operations, primarily due to strength in the US dollar versus the pound. Our U.S. revenue grew at 21%. International revenue grew at 20%. Global service revenue and purchased car revenue were similar for the quarter, with global service revenue growing at 20.1% and purchased car revenue growing at 25.4%, slightly outpacing service revenue. On unit sales, we grew worldwide 7.1% year-over-year, with U.S. unit growth of 7.3% and international unit growth of 5%. United States, our growth is driven both by our insurance customers as well as our non-insurance customers.
On the matter of organic growth within the insurance world, we believe that long-term trends in favor of rising total loss frequency continues. Repairing vehicles is becoming relatively less attractive, with repair costs rising from vehicle complexity and labor inflation, while at the same time, totaling vehicles is becoming relatively more attractive with more buyers for these damaged cars and rising selling prices as a result. We also continue to grow our non-insurance business as well. Non-insurance volume represents north of 24% of our total U.S. volume sold. In that non-insurance segment, we generally include franchise and independent auto dealers, finance and leasing companies, fleets, charities, equipment dealers, and wholesalers. We attribute growth in non-insurance to our increased marketing, sales, and operational focus, and of course, our auction liquidity and returns, most of all.
We grew global inventory for the quarter at 18.4%, with U.S. inventory growing 19.8% and international inventory growing 9.8%. Inventory growth was driven by factors similar to the ones that I described a moment ago for unit trends. We grew gross profit from $188.4 million to $242.6 million, or approximately 29% increase year-over-year. Our gross margin rate increased from 41.9% to 44.7%, an increase of 280 basis points. This is partially attributable to lapping elevated depreciation from a year ago and also partially attributable to rising average selling prices for our vehicles. International gross margins declined slightly from 28.9% to 25.5%, largely attributable to purchased car activity in Germany. I'll turn now to average selling prices within the U.S. for Copart Auctions, which rose 8.1% year-over-year for the fourth quarter.
This has been a continuation of a trend now for years, a reflection in our business of more bidders, more international bidders, and therefore improved auction liquidity, as well as increasing mix of newer, less damaged cars. International bidding and buying activity are in turn a reflection of our proactive marketing efforts as well as the effectiveness of our all-digital auction platform, VB3. The outcome is more bids per unit and therefore superior selling prices for our customers as well. In fact, our ASPs continue to outpace meaningfully the various used car indices such as the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index. As you know, rising ASPs, of course, To our unit growth drivers as well, with repair costs rising, but the proceeds for total loss units increasing at the same time, the total loss path becomes relatively more compelling economically.
I'll turn now to our general and administrative expenditures, ex stock comp and depreciation. G&A is down from $42.8 million a year ago to $39.8 million for the quarter. As we say almost every quarter, our G&A expenditures will fluctuate, and they will generally grow over time, but we continue to believe we can achieve operating leverage given the top-line growth we've experienced. As with all trended data in our business, gross margins, G&A, unit sales, inventory changes, et cetera, we encourage you to review longer-dated trend lines rather than single quarter metrics for a more accurate view of the business. Our GAAP operating income grew from $134.8 million to $192.8 million or 43% year-over-year. This is despite the currency effect of a negative $1.1 million in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2018.
We'll note again that in operating income, this increase reflects in part the elevated depreciation levels from a year ago. Our net interest expense was nearly flat, up from $4 million to $4.3, primarily due to less interest income from lower cash balances at year-end, a product in part of our share buybacks over the course of the year. Other expense of $1.5 million was largely attributable to non-recurring losses from our share of an equity method investment. On taxes, our fourth quarter income tax rate of 17.9% is a reflection of a lower U.S. federal tax rate, as we've discussed on prior calls, of 21% or thereabouts, as well as one-time benefits from stock option exercises and discrete income tax items. The one-time benefit from those stock option exercises has been reflected in our non-GAAP reconciliation, which is included in our earnings release.
GAAP net income increased from $109.7 million a year ago in the fourth quarter to $153.5 million this year, or an increase of approximately 40%. Our non-GAAP net income increased from $102.6 to $142.5, or growth of 39%. This again adjusts for certain excess tax deductions for stock option exercises and related payroll taxes, as well as certain legacy sales tax liability reserves. Finally, on the balance sheet and cash flow, before I turn it back to Jay, we finished the quarter with $186.3 million in cash on our books and a little north of $200 million in net debt. We generated operating cash flow for the quarter of $193 million, with CapEx of $114.5 million, more than 90% of which was attributable to capacity expansion and lease buyouts.
We continue our efforts to invest in land, to purchase and develop lands to meet both current and prospective demand for our services. With that, I'll turn it back to Jay.
Thank you, Jeff. Good morning again. This quarter not only is the fourth quarter for fiscal 2019, but it is the last quarter of the decade and a quarter that is a milestone, being 25 years since we went public. Copart went public on March 17th, 1994, and I literally remember it like yesterday, going into New York City for the first time. We crisscrossed back and forth meeting with investors, pitching Copart, and two weeks later, we were in the World Trade Center building. Must have been up about 100 floors. I know it was the highest I'd ever been in a building, and I know it was the highest I'd ever felt in my life. It was a pretty incredible time. They were yelling, "Copart" on the floor. People were screaming the name out and screaming a lot of other things that you wouldn't do today.
Times have changed a lot. It was one of the most memorable and emotional experiences I've ever had in my life. We were set. That's how I looked at it. Copart now was public. We paid off our debt. We had currency to go buy companies. We IPO'd that day at $0.50 a share. We closed that day up about 15%, based on my memory, which was quite a pop in the stock. There was quite a bit of demand for the company. We closed the year, 25 years ago, and yes, I had to look it up because that's one thing I don't remember. We closed the year with revenues of $22.8 million as a company and operating income for the year of $4.1 million. We set off, and we grew, and we bought companies, and we built a network.
In 1996, we reserved this thing called copart.com. We weren't really sure what the internet was, but we thought it was pretty cool. We, from that point on, really focused on all the things we could do with Copart and copart.com. In 1998, we launched internet bidding. It was the first of its kind. Willis and I were in San Francisco at an auction. It was called Butterfield & Butterfield. We saw people sitting at a desk on the phone, raising their hand and bidding against a live auctioneer. We had seen that in our business with contract buyers, but in this case, these people were on the phone with the actual end buyers. That's really where the idea came from, and we thought, why couldn't we allow people to submit bids over the internet, and then we would rep those bids at auction?
It hadn't been done in the whole car world. It hadn't been done in the salvage world. It was a brand-new concept of 1998. From March of 1994 to August of 1998, the stock had tripled. We were pretty proud of our success in terms of what the company had done in terms of growth, and in terms of what we'd seen in our stock price, we really wanted to innovate. We wanted to change the way that cars were sold. In those days, it was 100% live auction. Now we were introducing this internet experience, you really had to physically be at the auction to see the car and then submit the bid online. In 1999, we started putting images online, and that was another first for the industry. We chose five.
I'd like to tell you there was some kind of thought process behind it, but there's four corners on a car and an interior shot, and that was it. We put five images of every vehicle online and continued thinking about ways to improve the experience for our customers. By 2003, and clearly, we were ahead of our time in terms of really pushing towards a digital platform and towards an online platform. By 2003, we rolled out and tested our virtual bidding technology, and it was June 23rd, 2003, in Bakersfield, California. We chose Bakersfield because it was the smallest store we had in the company, and if we were going to test it, let's test it in a small environment and see how it does before setting it up. What we saw on that sale was the strongest returns out of the whole year.
It was a biweekly auction, so it was probably about 12 or 13 auctions so far that year, and it was the highest return we'd ever seen as a company in that location. We had to roll another site. We chose Syracuse, New York, because it's on the other side of the country, because it was also a small site, and it was a completely different experience. We saw the exact same results. Within six months, Copart would roll the whole company to virtual bidding technology, to VB2. It was our second generation of virtual bidding technology, hence the name. From there, we would see returns just continue to increase. They would increase all the way to 2008. Anybody who lived through 2008 in the business world knows what happened next. After the financial crisis, Copart had a decision.
What do we want to do? We chose to double down. We doubled down on our expansions, going international, expanding into the U.K., eventually Germany and Spain and Brazil and the Middle East, Canada, and a number of other locations that we went into or that we opened up internationally. We also doubled down on our marketing efforts. This was really the first time that Copart had taken an aggressive marketing stance. We started with NASCAR, with NHRA, with television, Speed Channel and ESPN2, and a number of other methods. That would evolve from that point on into a massive social media platform that we dominate today. Whether it's Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, there are a number of channels where people have over 1 million followers, and they talk about nothing but Copart on their channel.
Buying cars, fixing cars, and how they love to do business and to work with Copart, buying cars at Copart, and build cars and sell them. While this was happening, technology started to go into cars at a rapid rate. The interesting thing about 2019 is today you can buy a Kia that has everything from lane assist, adaptive cruise, adaptive headlights, every single thing you'd expect on a Mercedes-Benz. Except the interesting part is back in 2009, none of those things existed on a Mercedes-Benz. What we saw over the last 10 years is where the top car that you could buy in America had none of that technology, an average car in America is standard with that type of technology. We saw that trend starting about five years ago, and we kicked off a program called 20/20/20.
This allowed us to expand our network, expand our locations, and start to get really prepared for the volume that we knew was going to be coming in. Many of you who followed the company for a long time know that we also doubled down by acquiring a bunch of the company back, doing stock repurchases. To me, what's more important is how we operated the business. We focused on the marketing efforts to build ultimate demand for the product we're selling, to have room for all the vehicles through our expansive network of locations, and if you combine those two, you achieve record ASPs, you achieve record volumes, you achieve record successes. I'm very excited about what has happened over the last 25 years. How could I not be?
For a kid that went to New York City for the first time and looked up, couldn't believe it. I just could not believe. Couldn't believe what I saw. It was that incredible. Never been emotional on an earnings call. It was a really, really incredible experience. To be sitting here today and looking at a company that has gone from just over $20 million a year in revenue to a company that's broke the $2 billion revenue number, it's damn impressive. We have over 7,000 people that make up Copart. They're led by the best people in the world at what they do. The team that we have built over the last 25 years are amazing. It's why we've seen the kind of results we've seen.
I've never seen Copart, in all my years, never seen Copart in a better position, in a better opportunity to seize the future. With Will Franklin at my side and Jeff Liaw as our president, and with the rest of the team and the 7,000 people that make up Copart, I'm enormously excited. I can't say it enough. I'm enormously excited about what we're going to do in 2020, but I'm enormously excited about what we're going to do for the next 10 years. I was going to speak first, but Jeff was on a roll, so I was going to turn it over to our new president, but now I'll turn it over to questions. With that, Jonathan, if you'd open it up for questions, that'd be great.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now open the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the one key on your touchtone phone now. Questions will be taken in the order in which they are received. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, press star two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one now. We'll take our first question from Bob Labick of CJS Securities.
Good morning. It's Bob Labick from CJS. Congratulations, Jay, to you and to Copart on 25 great years. Congratulations to Jeff and to Will on their new roles as well.
Thank you. Thank you, Bob.
Excited for you guys. One question I wanted to start with. You've said for several quarters and mentioned it, I think you mentioned it today, Jeff, I'm not 100% sure, but you've been saying it for several quarters that you've been winning share in the U.S. I just was hoping you could discuss what's going on. What are you doing differently to gain the share? What are your key selling points with customers, and how do you continue to show this strong growth and share gain?
I think you know we generally don't comment on individual accounts. If you look at multiple quarters, multiple years really, I think it becomes self-evident that we have grown faster than the industry overall. The reasons we think are manyfold. A handful that I'll describe here, but certainly auction returns, the economic proposition we offer is first and foremost. You heard us both talk about our technology platform, member recruitment, global marketing, and so forth, which drives superlative auction results, which ultimately drives unit volumes and account wins in our favor. We, as you know from prior calls, pride ourselves on superior service as well, both in the ordinary course of business.
There are a number of details that I won't drag you through, but when we talk about operational performance with our customers, what that means, I think, is a manifold experience with Copart. Of course, we also take pride in our superior service in catastrophic events as well. Depending on where you are in storm cycles, economic cycles, et cetera, certainly different customers have different priorities. We work day and night to deliver excellent results on all those dimensions.
Got it. Great. On the ASP side, you've had obviously terrific results. I was hoping maybe you could break it down a little bit. Is it both in terms of the insurance ASPs and non-insurance growing, or is it just a mix towards non-insurance? If both are growing, within insurance, is it like-for-like growth? Meaning if you have a 10-year-old car with 150,000 miles this year, are you getting a higher ASP than you did a year ago? Just any color on the ASP growth would be great.
To answer your question technically is difficult because it is not like for like. Meaning a 10-year-old car today is not the same as a 10-year-old car a year ago. That's one of the drivers of this change. Yes, what we're describing is not just mix shift from insurance to non-insurance. It is also like-for-like increases in the selling prices of insurance vehicles. I think the answer to your question is yes, they are both increases in the 10-year-old car as well as an increasing mix of newer cars within the insurance world as well.
Got it. Great. Thank you. Last one quickly. I think last quarter we talked about Germany and building out the distribution kind of network within the country before flipping insurance companies. Can you talk about your latest thoughts and hurdles to getting that market to a Copart style?
Certainly. I think we have continued to invest in Germany. We've experienced strong growth in both our traditional listing service business as well as the Copart style, Copart model auctions that we're running in Germany. We continue to invest in land member recruitment, seller sales efforts, and so forth. The progress continues there. We continue to believe the economic proposition is compelling. Quarters ago, Bob, where we got into the detail, I think the story still very much holds from then.
Super. Well, congratulations again on all of the things we've just discussed, and thank you.
Thanks, Bob.
Thanks, Bob.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Craig Kennison of Baird.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, and again, congratulations on all those fronts. Wanted to ask about Hurricane Dorian and in general, your hurricane preparation this season. What have you done to prepare for Dorian? As that moves up the coast and maybe doesn't track towards Florida but threatens other states, how has your response evolved?
Thanks. Well, thanks, Craig. Copart started on getting experience, I would say, in super storms back in 2005. Sure, we dealt with storms prior to that, but 2005 was really the eye-opener. Following that would be Sandy and Harvey, and today we've got an amazing team that is just dedicated to CAT. We've got land dedicated to CAT, and we've got equipment dedicated to CAT. I could get into all the details, but let me just say this, we're prepared, and we're ready across the Eastern Seaboard. Whether the hurricane was going to impact Miami or whether it's going to impact New York, we've got the people, the equipment, and the land in place and ready to go to serve our customers. We're good.
Good, thank you. I'm assuming you have no exposure to the Bahamas.
No. None.
Okay. Jay, maybe in the spirit of long-term thinking, based on your comments, could you just talk about the sharing economy and what that means for Copart? You've got potentially a major shift in car ownership from individuals to fleets. How do you think that plays out for Copart, and is that a big trend, or are you looking towards other big trends as you look at the next quarter century?
Well, if we go back maybe five years-ish on these earnings calls, I remember making a comment that I didn't believe autonomous driving was going to be at the level that everybody was predicting back in those days. In fact, we actually, as I said on the opening call, we doubled down on our belief and started acquiring quite a bit of Copart stock because, I think there was just a general belief at that time that volumes would shrink over time, not increase. I could get into all of the sharing economy and I could sum it up with a bunch of examples and analogies, but there's nothing practical about buying a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW or any luxury car. It's a personal choice. There's nothing practical about living in a large home.
Most of America today, while could live in a much smaller home, chooses a larger home because it's convenient and it's nice. Cars are the same way. I think they're personal, and while there will be some sharing involved, just like there's some Uber involved, I think for the most part, when it's convenient, it's not always convenient in New York City to own a car, but while it's convenient in most of America to own a car, I think you'll see that. I'm of the belief, putting that aside, that we're going to see increased volume just as an industry, regardless of market share wins that Copart has had. You're going to see increased volume because the market's just going to continue to grow because the trend that's most important is technology being put into cars. That's not going to stop.
People love technology, and they love additional technology going into cars, and that will cause cars to be tougher to repair 10 years from now, and those vehicles will be more likely to be written off as a total loss than repaired. I think the trend of volume is going to continue to increase.
Hey, Craig, I was just going to jump in, add a little further. As you might imagine, we spend a lot of energy tracking technologies, changes in behavior, ride sharing, and the like, because we do make long-term, multiple decades investments in land and technology, et cetera, to support our business. We very much need to understand it. At the risk of being pedantic, I think I'd drag this back to the basic algebra of what drives unit volume for Copart, and that is vehicle miles traveled, accident frequency, and then total loss frequency. I ask myself, what does ride sharing mean for each of them? Ride sharing, I think, for miles traveled, almost certainly will drive up the number of miles on the roads today.
I've seen consulting studies that indicate that every mile of self-driving is replaced by 2.8 miles of ride sharing miles instead. That may be bullish, but the point is that almost certainly we have reduced the friction for driving. It's easier now to drive after a couple of drinks, easier for younger or older people to get in a car as well. Vehicle miles will rise. Accident frequency, I think all else equal, I think is likely neutral. I don't think that Uber and Lyft drivers are systematically superior drivers than the rest of us. You may be more bullish on that front than I am. Lastly, total loss frequency. Ride sharing, I think has no effect here. Total loss frequency has been the one-way tailwind for the past 50 years in the business. In 1980, total loss frequency was 4% or thereabouts.
Today, it's more than 5x that. To me, those are the individual drivers. Vehicle miles traveled and total loss frequency almost certainly will continue to move in our favor. Accident frequency, you'll form your own points of view as to how much of the growth in the other two is offset by accident frequency. In the aggregate, I don't think ride sharing changes the calculus for our business.
Great. Well, congratulations to everybody. Thank you.
Thanks, Craig.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Bret Jordan of Jefferies.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Hey, Bret.
Good morning.
Congratulations, Jeff. The question on scrap rate, do you feel that maybe is there an upper bound on the % of crashes that total? At what point the insurance companies no longer see the benefit of totaling, even if the repair cost is higher? I think we're at the high teens now. Is there a number you see that getting to in the next three to five years?
Hey, Bret. In short, no. I think you've mixed a few things in there that I will try to piece apart. One, you made the comment about scrap rates, which are clearly lower and more than 20% down year-over-year. We used to have that in our script every quarter. We literally didn't even include it this year because I think it's increasingly irrelevant for our business. Our cars, as you know, some are sold for parts, many are sold to be rebuilt and repaired, many go overseas for both purposes, and therefore the actual metal content in the car is less and less relevant for our fundamental business.
Yeah, Jeff, my question is, I should have said total rates as opposed to scrap.
Yeah.
The option to total a car as opposed to repair.
I think in a vacuum, that question may be reasonable, which is to say, what if, in other words, if I were to say to you hypothetically, what if total crashed cars, total loss cars, were to multiply by fivefold? Will you get to the point where it doesn't make economic sense to total anymore? All else equal, I think the answer might have been yes. If I told you total loss vehicles can grow by fivefold while selling prices for those totaled cars keep rising and substantially so, then I think the problem is solved, right? If there were a finite demand, a fixed demand for that supply of vehicles, I think the answer is yes.
I think we have proven, especially over the past three years, that that demand is very much not finite, that that global buyer base for wrecked U.S. and U.K. and Canadian cars, et cetera, is robust and growing.
Okay, great. Then a follow-up on the land purchase. You commented in the prepared remarks, and then you also commented in Germany. Could you talk about what your acreage add in 2019 was and maybe what you see acreage expectations for 2020 or maybe on sort of on an average go forward basis?
We generally don't provide that, Bret, for a multitude of reasons, including that the gross number of acres is actually not all that informative, right? The land is not fungible, what you have in Florida is not relevant to what you have in Texas and California and so forth. We don't provide that level of detail because I think it's almost misleading in its precision. I think the punchline is we invested very meaningfully in land in fiscal 2019. We don't see that trend abating anytime soon.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Daniel Imbro of Stephens.
Yep. Hey, good morning, guys. I'll add my congratulations to the list and thanks for taking our questions. I want to start on the non-insurance business. I know we've talked about this in recent quarters, but your language seems to be getting more positive. Jeff, I think you mentioned it was up to 24% of volume. Can you talk about or update us on your strategic approach to that business? I mean, do you foresee that becoming a much larger portion of your volume going forward? And on the margin, where are you winning these units from? Where are they going today that you're taking the units? Thanks.
Thanks for your question, Dan. In short, I think I get that question a fair bit when I'm on the road as to whether it will grow as a mix of our overall business. I think what I'd tell you fundamentally, that's not really how we think about running the business. We want to grow our insurance business, and we want to grow our non-insurance dealer business, equipment dealers, wholesalers, the entire universe of customers we want to grow. Whether one or even a given year or five-year period is "outgrowing" the other is less relevant to us than the fact that we want to continue to pursue and grow our business there. I think you heard me briefly allude to the economic proposition or the value proposition we offer these sellers in the non-insurance universe.
I think, again, first and foremost is a massive liquid digital auction platform that will yield full and fair values to them. That hard stop is the most important thing by far. Beyond that, of course, is the service and the sales force and the marketing efforts that we have underway to pursue and win those customers. I think we win that business from a multitude of different places. From the dealer world, some of those folks may well floor and sell the cars directly themselves and instead opt for look to the large whole car auctions. Others look to newer modern digital apps, C2C, B2C, B2B, and otherwise through which to dispose of vehicles. There's no doubt it's a competitive universe.
I think our growth in the past few years is a reflection of our success in both our marketing efforts, but ultimately the auction platform itself and the prices it yields.
That's really helpful. Thanks. Touching on something you mentioned, I think, during your remarks. I think you said inventory was up over 18% to end the quarter. That's much higher than last quarter and kind of the last few. I know that can move quarter to quarter due to timing, did we see anything accelerate during the quarter that led to such a strong inventory build, or was that just a timing issue or a comparison issue that led to that big number?
I think the inventory growth, as you know from having followed us for a while, is the best but also still imperfect indicator of unit volume for the next quarter or two or three. It certainly is an indication of strong growth in the business. That's how I would interpret it. I would, again, reiterate that in looking at any of these measures, we look at multiple quarters at a time, not an individual data point. That's literally one day, July 31st, 2019 versus July 31st, 2018. Nonetheless, that growth rate is not accidental. It is a reflection of both growing market volumes, account wins, and growth in our business.
Perfect. Last one for me, just touching on international growth. I think you guys mentioned it was about 6% on the unit side. Again, I know it can be noisy quarter to quarter, but that is a step down from, call it, four quarters in a row of double-digit growth. Is there anything that changed there, any of your markets or did any specific markets weaken or soften through the quarter? Thanks.
There's no particular sustained change that's reflected in that number. I'll be internally consistent and tell you in both directions that a single quarter indicator is not the best and most reliable indicator for the business.
Perfect. Thanks so much. Best of luck, guys.
Thanks, Dan.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Ryan Brinkman of JPMorgan.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just curious if you've thought about entering the portion of the dealer-to-dealer whole car market that is not physical but entirely software related. For example, similar to KAR Auction Services, TradeRev business, or ACV Auctions, while I think whole car has not been a strong focus for you, I know your technology platform is highly regarded in the industry, and just wondering if maybe there's a way to leverage that in an asset-light way. Perhaps more generally, following on the earlier question, if you could elaborate on which parts of the non-insurance market do you consider to be in your addressable market?
Got it. First, on the all-digital question, I think for us, we're always exploring ways to better serve our sellers and buyers, that's certainly one of the paths that we consider and evaluate on an ongoing basis. I think I would note, there are folks who are investing very heavily, quite literally losing money and spending cash on those pathways while we continue to generate very positive returns on our auction platform. The overall value proposition for Copart, against a backdrop of, in some cases, venture-backed businesses and so forth, continues to grow very well, meaningfully faster than the used car market overall. I think it's a reflection, at least in part, that the Copart auction platform is succeeding in that world as is. To your second question about the addressable universe, I don't know that we'd exclude anyone.
I think there are folks who are more target-rich than others, these are leasing companies, fleets, dealers, independent franchise. I think anyone with a vehicle to sell, we consider fair game for Copart.
Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thanks. Just my last question, I was curious if you thought that there might be any change to the competitive environment now that your primary competitor in the U.S., IAA, is a standalone business. There's been some speculation that they might wish to more closely emulate Copart's strategy. I don't know, with regard to investment in different areas, including internationally. Just curious if you had any thoughts on that.
I think almost certainly a better question for them.
Got it. Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Imagine what I would've said to that.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Chris Bottiglieri of Wolfe Research.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Jay, I don't think I've ever heard a more impassioned earnings call. Is this mostly from hitting the milestones and some of the significant promotions that were announced last night? Or is there something the business has suddenly inflected that has you very impassioned? Frankly, looking at the fundamentals, this is the best insurance unit volume we've seen in quite some time in exit rate in terms of inventory growth. Just curious, what's behind this enthusiasm? Thank you.
Well, we're doing very well right now. There's no question about that. I felt I should at least tell some of the story of the last 25 years, and I promise not to get verklempt, as the woman on "Coffee Talk" does. When I look back in my head and think about going to New York for the first time, seeing the process and how you take a company public, and watching Willis give his spiel to the investment community 10 times a day for two weeks, and then to hear that Copart being yelled and screamed and sworn across the floor, I thought it was just a story that had to be told.
It's something we talk about sometimes internally, but I think the investment community may not really appreciate the humble beginnings of this company and what this company's achieved, and the people that make up this company and how incredible they are. It's just, yeah, we're doing well right now, but it's just that I try not to get emotional sometimes, but it happens. In that case, it happened. I guess maybe reflecting back in my mind of Willis having a conversation with Willie Weinstein and the puck's getting ready to open up on the floor. The next thing you know, they're screaming, "Copart." There's a bottle of champagne and everybody's taking a sip at 10 o'clock in the morning or nine o'clock in the morning, whatever the hell the street opens up.
It was just such a great memory, and it's a once in a lifetime, I think. Copart, over the years, was viewed as, "Oh, geez, you guys have tripled the stock now." Oh, geez, you guys have six times the stock now. I don't know what the stock's trading at today, but at $0.50 a share, if it's $80, we've 160 times the stock. The future, for me, has never been brighter. I've never seen the market share gains that we're seeing right now in the history of the company. I've never seen the kind of volume that's coming in from a market share win, and I've never seen the kind of organic growth because of the technology in cars, and I've never seen us operate at such a high level in terms of delivering on the service. That's it in a nutshell.
That's awesome. That's really helpful. I wanted to ask maybe bigger picture, long-term question. Do you think like some of this accident avoidance technology fear is overblown for your industry, specifically at least near term anyway? I wonder if the accident frequency is more prone to low-speed accidents. What's actually left that is an accident is more likely to be totaled. Have you looked at that at all in terms of figuring out that impact it's had?
Let me make this two parts. Let me turn it over to Jeff after I make this comment, because he'll give you, I think, a more precise response or answer to it. William Franklin coined the term risk homeostasis, and I think it makes a lot of sense. That is that if you've got auto braking or you've got adaptive cruise or you've got lane assist or the car literally drives itself down the road, keeping it in the lane, you just got to keep your hands on the wheel. I think those are technologies that allow you to take more risks, hence the term risk homeostasis. I think it causes people to be distracted more, and in some ways makes the car no safer. As a recipient of damaged cars, I would like to see people drive safely.
That, at the end of the day, is most important. When you have technology on cars that allow you to be less engaged, people don't multitask well. You're either good at driving the car, or you're good at not driving the car and being a passenger. To drive the car and not fully focus on the car in front of you, the car that's in the lane next to you, because you've got technology to assist you, I don't think it's the best idea. Me personally, I shut all that stuff off in my cars. I go in, hit all the buttons. I don't have any of that stuff working when I drive. I don't want the car trying to keep me in my lane. I don't want any of that.
On the flip side, when the car does get in a wreck, all that technology has to be replaced. It raises the cost of repair, increases total losses. That's my take. I'll turn it to Jeff.
Chris, what I was going to add is that I think what you're alluding to is not simply the one metric measure of accident frequency, but also potentially reduced severity as well. I think the answer to that is, yes, you could see less physical severity in an accident, so to speak. I think, by the way, if you went back and looked, say, go back in 10-year increments and take a picture of a borderline salvaged car or total loss car, that car has changed a lot in the last 50 years. 50 years ago, the car was obliterated. It was hammered, barely recognizable as a vehicle. Today, a car that is mildly hit from the rear or the front can easily be totaled by virtue of the technology you just described.
Accident detection and avoidance systems are effectively high value, no generic available sensors on the perimeter of a car. There's lane departure sensors in the mirrors, the cameras and LIDAR in the front and rear bumpers. Those are technologies that are expensive to repair, literally for the parts themselves, as well as the skill required to install and calibrate them. While the physical severity may decrease, I think the economic severity is unlikely to. The cost of repair, we don't think is going down anytime soon, and I think there is decades worth of evidence to suggest that's true.
Got you. That's really helpful. All right. Thanks for the insightful thoughts.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, you may press star one now. We'll take our next question from Derek Glenn of Consumer Edge Research.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to follow up on ASPs up 8% in the U.S. Still a strong number, but also decelerating from prior quarters. Are there any cause or factors in particular that are causing that rate of change to be a little bit lower than prior periods?
No, not particularly. I think that ASP number is still growing meaningfully more than the used car market in general, meaningfully more than the ACV or the pre-accident value, so to speak, of the cars that are being consigned through us. I don't think it's a reflection of any particular change.
Okay, understood. Jay, you talked a lot about the marketing efforts of the company historically. Just curious how you see that marketing program and message unfolding or evolving in the future, particularly as you expand further into international markets.
Well, let me start with this. For 16 years, we've had data that nobody else in the industry has because every single bid goes through the internet. We've got every single high bid, every single second high bid, what we call a push bid, every single bid on that vehicle. We can see what customers are looking for. It's analogous to Amazon. If you are looking at an iPhone or iPad, iPods or something of that nature on the site and you don't buy it, they know you were looking. They know you're interested. They know that you may actually want cords or some other features. We have the same ability. They look at every single vehicle and bid online, it allows us to tailor the technology towards pushing vehicles to them.
In the old days, we used to say a buyer comes to the yard, looks at the car, and has to find it. We put it online, the buyer can go online and find it, but we've taken down the travel friction, but we haven't taken down the friction of finding, and now we find it for you. If you're online, we're going to very quickly be able to tailor the types of vehicles that you're looking for and what you want. That's one massive component. The other component I talked about already is the social media piece. We've really been able to create a buzz around the amazing product and the technology that Copart has. When you think about, you put both of those together, it allows you to create an enormous demand for the cars.
Jeff said, we're not thinking about scrap prices today. That vehicles are much different, and the demand on the vehicles is much different than it was 10 years ago. It's really changed from that standpoint. When you think internationally, these trends are happening in Germany and the U.K. and other big markets that we're active in. We're leveraging knowledge across multiple markets, which is a wonderful thing. Different maybe than Walmart is in the U.S. and Walmart has Asda in the U.K. I don't know if someone who buys at Asda in the U.K. is going to buy something in the U.S. With Copart, there's a cross-pollination of buyer base, where buyers that are looking at product in the U.K. may go online and find that Harley-Davidson they were looking for in the U.S. and then bid on it.
There's a fair amount of that that exists. I give that example, but there's a fair amount of that that exists across Polish buyers buying in the U.K., become aware of Copart, start to bid in the U.S., that kind of thing. That's why you see so much focus from Jeff on talking about international bidding and the rest, because it's a very different game than it was 10 years ago when scrap prices mattered.
Got it. Thanks for all the commentary.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Jay Adair for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Jonathan. Appreciate everybody coming to the call. We look forward to reporting on Q1, and we'll talk to you then. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. Have a great rest of your day.