Competition

Competitors describe Copart, Inc.'s market in their own filings and calls. These verified passages and visual pages show where their strategies meet, using source documents preserved in Sources.

RB Global, Inc. (IAA / Insurance Auto Auctions) (RBA)

RB Global owns IAA, Insurance Auto Auctions — Copart's single most direct competitor and the #2 platform in the US insurance-salvage vehicle auction market Copart leads. IAA runs the same machine: online bidding, an international buyer base, catastrophe-surge capacity, and total-loss vehicles consigned by insurance carriers. Only the Automotive (IAA) segment is in scope here; the Ritchie Bros. heavy-equipment and commercial-truck auction business is a separate market and is excluded. The FY2024/FY2025 annual-report files indexed for RBA contain only the financial statements and notes, so the competitive narrative below is drawn from the earnings calls.

IAA's parent cites third-party CCC Intelligent Solutions data putting total-loss frequency at 24.2% — the secular driver that expands the pool of insurance-consigned vehicles feeding both IAA's and Copart's auctions — and shows how catastrophe-quarter comparisons distort headline growth (reported +3% GTV versus ~+12% ex-CAT). The 24.2% figure is an external estimate; the CAT-adjusted growth is management's own calculation.

Eric Guerin, CFO, prepared remarks (Q4 2025 earnings call): Automotive GTV increased 3% in the quarter, driven by a 2% rise in unit volumes. Excluding the impact of catastrophic activity in the fourth quarter of 2024, GTV and unit volumes grew approximately 12% and 8%, respectively. […] Throughout 2025, the inflation differential between automotive repair costs and used vehicle pricing continued to narrow, though it remained positive in the fourth quarter. This dynamic continues to support an increase in the total loss ratio, with CCC Intelligent Solutions estimating that the total loss frequency across all categories increased by 10 basis points to 24.2% compared to the prior year period. It is important to note that last year's ratio was elevated due to various catastrophic events, making the year-over-year comparison more challenging.

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Asked how exposed IAA is to the troubled higher-value used-car and subprime ecosystem, the CEO scopes IAA's book as principally salvage plus a 'slightly damaged' whole-car adjunct under roughly $5,000, disclaiming exposure above $15,000. Useful for gauging how directly IAA overlaps Copart's salvage core versus Copart's own whole-car and wholesale ambitions. This is management's characterization of its mix, not independently measured.

James Kessler, CEO, Q&A response to Craig Kennison, Baird (Q3 2025 earnings call): Just as a reminder, when we talk about our whole car business, again, think about cars that are whole cars but are slightly damaged. It's very complementary to the salvage business and the buyer base that we have. And we're not really upstream in cars over a significant dollar amount like $15,000 and above. So we really have no exposure. We're really more into cars that I would call whole cars but slightly damaged is the majority of where we play. So think about a car that's less than $5,000 in that range.

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IAA management asserts a fifth straight quarter of unit-volume outperformance and a 2026 net-share-gain goal in insurance salvage, while conceding a 'competitive market' — the arena Copart leads. The share-gain and ~10% ASP claims are the peer's assertions; note that unit growth was only 1% and the ASP figure reflects pricing and vehicle mix, not necessarily share.

James Kessler, CEO, prepared remarks (Q1 2026 earnings call): Despite these headwinds, gross returns measured as the salvage values as a percentage of pre-accident cash value continue to expand, supporting approximately 10% year-over-year growth in U.S. insurance Average Selling Prices. […] Unit volumes increased 1% year-over-year, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of outperformance relative to the broader market. […] We remain confident in our goal of delivering net market-share gains in 2026, as our focus on driving tangible P&L value for our partners continues to resonate and differentiate our platform. Importantly, in a competitive market, we will remain selective in pursuing volumes.

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OPENLANE, Inc. (formerly KAR Auction Services) (KAR)

OPENLANE is the largest pure-play digital wholesale used-vehicle marketplace in North America and Europe — the whole-car/wholesale online-auction model Copart competes with outside its insurance-salvage core. Having sold ADESA's US physical auctions to Carvana in 2022, OPENLANE is now digital-first, which makes its filings the cleanest read on the size and digitization of the wholesale (dealer-to-dealer and off-lease) market that Copart's non-insurance business chases.

OPENLANE pegs the US/Canada wholesale used-vehicle TAM at roughly 15 million vehicles, defining the whole-car pool Copart's non-insurance business competes for — distinct from Copart's salvage/total-loss market. The 'leading digital wholesale marketplace' label is a self-assessment, not a measured share.

OPENLANE Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1 Business — 'Our Industry': We believe the U.S. and Canadian wholesale used vehicle industry has a total addressable market of approximately 15 million vehicles, which can fluctuate depending on seasonality and a variety of other macro-economic and industry factors. […] There is a large used vehicle marketplace industry in North America that includes physical, digital and hybrid marketplaces, independent wholesalers, and ancillary wholesale channels operated by large retail automotive groups, rental companies and financial institutions. OPENLANE is a leading digital wholesale marketplace and offers a compelling value proposition in terms of speed, ease and outcomes for buyers and sellers.

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Quantifies OPENLANE's throughput — roughly 1.5 million vehicles and $28.8 billion GMV in 2025 across the US, Canada and Europe — a concrete benchmark for sizing Copart's whole-car and international remarketing volumes. GMV is gross transaction value, not revenue, so it is not directly comparable to Copart's reported revenue.

OPENLANE Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1 Business — 'Overview': OPENLANE is a leading digital marketplace for wholesale used vehicles operating in the United States, Canada and Europe. Our technology and people connect the leading automotive manufacturers, dealers, rental companies, fleet operators, captive finance and lending institutions as buyers and sellers to facilitate approximately 1.5 million annual vehicle transactions with a gross merchandise value ("GMV") of $28.8 billion in 2025. GMV represents the total dollar value of vehicles sold through our marketplaces.

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OPENLANE's CEO states that over 70% of US wholesale dealer-to-dealer volume still transacts physically, framing digital penetration as early — the same physical-to-digital runway Copart's online model targets. The 'leader' and share claims are management assertions, not audited data.

Peter Kelly, CEO, Q&A (Q3 2025 earnings call): While we still hold a relatively small market share in U.S. D2D, it represents the largest total addressable market available to us, making it a significant growth opportunity. […] As for the drivers behind this growth, we believe the industry is transitioning from a primarily physical model to a more digital model. Currently, over 70% of volumes are still physical, but the digital share is increasing, and we are a leader in this space.

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ACV Auctions, Inc. (ACVA)

ACV Auctions runs a digital dealer-to-dealer wholesale vehicle auction marketplace built around online live auctions, condition inspections, transport and financing — a direct competitor to Copart's whole-car/wholesale online-auction business and a fellow proponent of the physical-to-digital migration thesis. It is a growth-stage share-taker, so its filings articulate the digitization opportunity in the wholesale channel adjacent to Copart's salvage core.

ACV's filing calls digital penetration of the wholesale market early-stage and lagging retail, and claims it will capture a disproportionate share of the shift — the clearest written statement of ACV's penetration thesis in the same whole-car arena Copart plays in. Aspirational, but from a filed 10-K.

ACV Auctions Form 10-K (FY2025), MD&A — Key Factors Affecting Performance: Wholesale vehicle online penetration is in the early stages, lagging the consumer automotive market, and we expect more dealers and commercial partners to source and manage their inventory online. As the digitization of the wholesale automotive market accelerates, we believe that our digital marketplace is well positioned to capture a disproportionate share of that growth.

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ACV's CEO puts roughly 70% of dealer wholesale still clearing through physical auctions, with the stated goal of converting that volume to digital — the size-of-the-prize framing behind ACV's and Copart's online-auction positioning. Management assertion, not audited fact.

George Chamoun, CEO, Q&A (Q4 2025 earnings call): It's important to note that dealer wholesale is still largely driven by physical auctions, which account for 70% of the business. Our goal remains to shift more of this physical auction business to digital platforms, and we are seeing progress in that area due to our differentiated offerings.

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ACV reports 213,000 units sold in the quarter and claims accelerating share gains, plus expansion into commercial wholesale (via Project VIPER) — a move toward the fleet/off-lease consignor supply that whole-car auction players contest. The unit count is reported; 'market share gains' and 'accelerated' are management characterizations.

George Chamoun, CEO, prepared remarks (Q1 2026 earnings call): Third, we're gaining traction with our emerging growth initiatives, including the initial launch of VIPER and expanding our TAM into commercial wholesale. […] Even with weather impacts, our market share gains accelerated throughout the quarter, selling 213,000 vehicles, exceeding a difficult comparison in Q1 2025.

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LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

LKQ is the largest provider of recycled and alternative collision parts and one of the biggest buyers of salvage vehicles at auction. It sits on the opposite side of the total-loss/repairable decision from Copart: its 10-K discloses that it sources most recycled inventory by bidding at third-party salvage auctions, and its management explains in detail the estimate-to-used-car-value threshold that routes a damaged car into a salvage auction (good for Copart) versus a repair (good for LKQ). An adjacent ecosystem participant and major auction buyer, not a head-to-head auction operator — but its commentary directly illuminates the driver of Copart's salvage supply.

LKQ's CEO spells out the economic threshold that determines whether a damaged vehicle is repaired or 'totaled out' — the same total-loss decision that generates Copart's salvage-auction supply. The mechanism cuts the opposite way for the two companies: rising used-car values push more cars below the total-loss threshold into repairs (LKQ parts demand) and out of the salvage pool (a Copart headwind). Management commentary on market mechanics, from a party on the repairable side.

Justin Jude, President & CEO, Q&A (Q1 2026 earnings call): The biggest benefit and the most real-time response that we get on improving repairable claims is on the used car side. So through Q1, used car prices went up 3.6%, 6.2% alone in March. If you think about the estimating process, as soon as an estimate is written, it's immediately compared to that used car value. If it's below the threshold, it turns into a repairable claim. If it's above the threshold, it gets totaled out. So when we see used car prices like in March grow 6.2%, that immediately reflects into the repairable claims.

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A buyer's-eye corroboration of Copart's market power: LKQ discloses it sources most recycled inventory at third-party salvage auctions, without contracts, and flags that 'a small number of companies control a large percentage of the salvage auction market' — the concentrated platforms (Copart and IAA) it depends on and could see raise fees. A fact-based risk disclosure that positions LKQ as a customer of, not a rival to, Copart's auctions.

LKQ Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1A Risk Factors: Most of our wholesale recycled inventory is obtained from vehicles offered at salvage auctions that are owned and operated by third party companies. We do not typically have contracts with these auction companies. According to industry analysts, a small number of companies control a large percentage of the salvage auction market. If an auction company prohibited us from participating in its auctions, began competing with us, or significantly raised its fees, our business could be adversely affected through higher costs or the resulting potential inability to service our customers. […] In addition, there is a limited supply of salvage vehicles in North America, and thus the costs to us of these vehicles could increase over time.

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CarMax, Inc. (KMX)

Beyond its used-car retail stores, CarMax operates one of the largest wholesale vehicle auctions in the US — 538,203 vehicles sold in fiscal 2026, conducted primarily virtually since fiscal 2021. The overlap with Copart is the wholesale-auction operation, but the model is structurally different: CarMax auctions are captive, disposing of aged trade-ins that fail its retail standards rather than insurance total-loss vehicles. The retail store experience is out of scope except as the source of auction supply.

CarMax's own Competition section places its auctions against 'other automotive in-person and online auctions' — the category Copart occupies — and confirms it has run those auctions primarily virtually since fiscal 2021, mirroring the online-bidding model. It also flags the key contrast: CarMax auctions are fed by captive appraisal buys that fail retail standards and skew older/higher-mileage, versus Copart's insurance-driven salvage flow.

CarMax Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1 Business — 'Competition': Our high volume of appraisal purchases, further supported by our online instant appraisal offers and MaxOffer, supplies not only a large portion of our retail inventory, but also provides the scale that enables us to conduct our own wholesale auctions to dispose of vehicles that do not meet our retail standards. […] Our wholesale auctions compete with other automotive in-person and online auctions. These competitors auction vehicles of all ages, while CarMax’s auctions predominantly sell older, higher mileage vehicles. Since fiscal 2021, our wholesale auctions have primarily been conducted virtually.

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Highlights the structural difference from a consignment platform like Copart: CarMax owns 100% of the vehicles it auctions, yielding a ~99% sell-through rate. Copart, by contrast, is predominantly a fee-based agent auctioning vehicles it does not own for insurance sellers — a distinction that matters when comparing sell-through, inventory risk and margin structure.

CarMax Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1 Business — vehicle sourcing: Those vehicles that do not meet our retail standards are sold to licensed dealers through our wholesale auctions. Unlike many other auto auctions, we own all the vehicles that we sell in our auctions, which allows us to maintain a high auction sales rate. This high sales rate, combined with dealer-friendly practices, makes our auctions an attractive source of vehicles for licensed dealers. […] For fiscal 2026, our average auction sales rate was approximately 99%.

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Carvana Co. (CVNA)

Carvana is primarily an online used-car retailer, but its 2022 acquisition of ADESA's US physical auction network (56 locations) and its build-out of ADESA Clear, a digital wholesale auction, make it an indirect competitor in the whole-car wholesale auction and remarketing market. The overlap is whole-car dealer wholesale, distinct from Copart's insurance-salvage core; the retail e-commerce business is out of scope.

Carvana is building ADESA Clear, a digital wholesale auction on top of the 15 ADESA sites where it has added reconditioning — the infrastructure layer most directly analogous to Copart's online-bidding platform, though aimed at whole-car dealer wholesale rather than salvage. Evidence Carvana is investing in the online-auction and remarketing capabilities where Copart competes. 'Best-in-class' is management's own characterization, without third-party benchmarking.

Ernest Garcia, CEO, prepared remarks (Q3 2025 earnings call): Over the last 18 months, we've added reconditioning capacity to 15 ADESA locations, allowing us to position inventory closer to our customers, reducing customer delivery time by a day in the last 5 quarters. We've developed our digital auction capability, ADESA Clear, delivering a best-in-class digital auction experience to our wholesale customers

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The 10-K states the ADESA acquisition scale — 56 physical auction locations being rebuilt for combined retail and wholesale use — and frames Carvana's ~1.6% share of a ~37 million-transaction used-vehicle retail market. Note the TAM cited is the retail market, not the wholesale/salvage auction pool where Copart operates, so the 'long runway' framing should be read with that caveat.

Carvana Form 10-K (FY2025), Item 1 Business: Further, the acquisition of ADESA US Auction, LLC in 2022 provided us with 56 additional locations, which we have been building out to increase our reconditioning capacity and the number of inventory pools closer to customers. We are integrating ADESA sites to combine retail and wholesale capabilities within single locations over time, enhancing both retail production and wholesale disposition. […] With more than 37 million transactions in 2024, according to Cox Automotive, the used vehicle retail market represents a massive, highly fragmented industry, of which Carvana currently has an estimated market share of only approximately 1.6%.

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Competition

RB Global, Inc. (IAA / Insurance Auto Auctions) (RBA)

OPENLANE, Inc. (formerly KAR Auction Services) (KAR)

ACV Auctions, Inc. (ACVA)

LKQ Corporation (LKQ)

CarMax, Inc. (KMX)

Carvana Co. (CVNA)

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