Vehicle customization spans specialty equipment, accessories, performance parts, installation, and related aftermarket retail. In the United States, the clearest direct measure is the specialty-equipment market, while Census, BLS, and company filings describe broader retail, labor, distribution, and financial activity.
Key Vehicle Customization Statistics
The most useful headline figures cover market scale, vehicle mix, powertrains, employment, and aftermarket business activity:
- In 2023, the U.S. specialty-equipment market generated $52.3 billion in sales.
- In 2023, specialty-equipment sales in the United States were about 1% higher than in 2022.
- In SEMA’s 2023 economic-impact estimate, the specialty-equipment industry contributed nearly $337 billion in U.S. economic impact.
- In SEMA’s 2023 estimate, the specialty-equipment aftermarket supported 1.3 million U.S. jobs.
- In a 2024 release, SEMA represented more than 7,000 member companies involved in specialty automotive parts.
- In 2023, pickups accounted for 32% of U.S. accessory and performance-parts sales.
- In 2023, CUVs accounted for 15% of U.S. accessory and performance-parts sales.
- In 2023, SUVs accounted for 12% of U.S. accessory and performance-parts sales.
- In 2023, EVs and hybrids generated $2.5 billion in U.S. specialty-equipment sales.
- In 2023, pickups, CUVs, and SUVs together represented 59% of accessory and performance-parts sales.
- In 2023, U.S. automotive parts and accessories stores recorded $84.377 billion in sales.
- In 2023, those U.S. stores reported $12.520 billion in annual payroll.
- In 2023, automotive parts and accessories stores employed 3,075,444 people in the United States.
- In May 2023, NAICS 441300 automotive parts, accessories, and tire retailers employed 573,550 workers.
- In May 2023, the broader automotive parts, accessories, and tire retail industry had a $19.47 mean hourly wage.
- In fiscal 2024, AutoZone reported $18.5 billion in net sales.
- In 2024, LKQ’s parts-and-services revenue increased 9.9% to $5.465 billion.
- In 2024, the three largest customers represented 60.7% of Standard Motor Products’ consolidated net sales.
Contents
- Vehicle customization market size and growth
- Pickup, CUV, and SUV customization trends
- Customization spending across powertrains
- Automotive aftermarket retail and business data
- Vehicle customization workforce and wages
- Aftermarket distribution and financial outcomes
Vehicle Customization Market Size and Growth
SEMA’s specialty-equipment definition captures a major part of vehicle customization, including specialty automotive parts, accessories, and performance equipment. It does not cover every modification or customization activity, so its totals should be read as an industry estimate rather than a complete census of all customized vehicles.
- The U.S. automotive specialty-equipment market generated $52.3 billion in sales in 2023, according to SEMA’s Automotive Specialty-Equipment Sales Grow to $52.3 Billion.
- SEMA estimated that 2023 specialty-equipment sales were about 1% higher than in 2022. This is an industry estimate, not a measured percentage of vehicles modified.
- SEMA estimated nearly $337 billion in U.S. economic impact in its 2023 report, a broader measure than direct customization sales.
- The same estimate associated the specialty-equipment aftermarket with 1.3 million U.S. jobs, including work beyond customization installers alone.
- SEMA’s 2024 release said the association represented more than 7,000 member companies involved in specialty automotive parts; membership is not the full industry universe.
SEMA’s Fall 2023 outlook also measured business expectations rather than realized results. Fifty-five percent of surveyed aftermarket manufacturers expected growth in 2024, while two-thirds of industry companies reported stable or growing sales during 2023, according to the same SEMA source.
Pickup, CUV, and SUV Customization Trends
Vehicle-segment shares show where accessory and performance-parts sales were concentrated in 2023. They are sales shares, not the proportion of owners in each segment who modified their vehicles.
| Vehicle segment | Share of accessory and performance-parts sales | Period and geography |
|---|---|---|
| Pickups | 32% | 2023, United States |
| CUVs | 15% | 2023, United States |
| SUVs | 12% | 2023, United States |
| Combined three-segment share | 59% | 2023, United States |
The individual segment estimates appear in SEMA’s specialty-equipment market release. The combined 59% is derived by adding SEMA’s separately reported 32%, 15%, and 12% figures, so rounding makes it approximate.
On the same rounded basis, pickup sales share exceeded CUV share by 17 percentage points, while CUV share was 3 percentage points higher than SUV share. Pickups represented about 54.2% of the three-segment subtotal, calculated as 32 divided by 59; these comparisons describe accessory-sales mix, not modification likelihood.
The pickup share was approximately 2.67 times the SUV share, using 32 divided by 12. Because the inputs are rounded market shares, this ratio should not be interpreted as saying pickups are 2.67 times as likely to be customized.
Vehicle Customization Spending Across Powertrains
Alternative powertrains were a measurable but smaller part of SEMA’s 2023 specialty-equipment market estimate. SEMA combined electric vehicles and hybrids in the reported figure, so the data do not separate those two powertrains.
- EVs and hybrids generated $2.5 billion in U.S. specialty-equipment sales in 2023, as reported by SEMA.
- Dividing the $2.5 billion alternative-power figure by the $52.3 billion total gives an approximate 4.8% share of the cited specialty-equipment market. This is derived from rounded estimates, not an official market-share definition.
- The total specialty-equipment market was approximately 20.9 times larger than EV-and-hybrid specialty-equipment sales in 2023, another calculation from rounded SEMA figures.
SEMA’s alternative-power figure is also approximately 4.8% of the combined $54.8 billion represented by the cited total market plus alternative-power amount. That descriptive arithmetic should not be read as a new official market boundary, because the $2.5 billion is already a component of the broader $52.3 billion estimate.
Automotive Aftermarket Retail and Customization Business Data
Census data provide a broader view of the retail channel that sells parts and accessories used for maintenance, replacement, and customization. The NAICS 441310 category is not customization-only.
| Measure | 2023 | 2024 | Definition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | $84.377 billion | $85.239 billion | U.S. automotive parts and accessories stores |
| Annual payroll | $12.520 billion | Not supplied | Same Census category |
| Employment | 3,075,444 people | Not supplied | Same Census category |
| End-of-year inventories | Not supplied | $22.666 billion | Same Census category |
These figures come from the Census AIES44BASIC retail-trade table. The 2024 sales value was about 1.0% above the 2023 value, a calculation from the two Census totals; both years cover the broad retail category.
Company filings show the scale of major aftermarket retailers, but their results also include replacement and maintenance demand. O’Reilly reported $8.55 billion in gross profit in 2024, a 51.2% gross profit margin, and a 6% increase in gross profit from 2023 to 2024.
O’Reilly also reported $5.30 billion in SG&A expense, equal to 31.7% of sales, plus $3.25 billion in operating income, a 19.5% operating margin, $2.39 billion in net income, and $40.66 diluted earnings per share in 2024. These are consolidated company measures from O’Reilly Automotive’s 2024 Form 10-K, not consumer customization spending.
Vehicle Customization Workforce and Wages
BLS data describe NAICS 441300, automotive parts, accessories, and tire retailers, in May 2023. The classification includes tire retail and broad industry occupations, so it should not be presented as a count of customization technicians alone.
| Workforce measure | May 2023 U.S. result |
|---|---|
| Total employment | 573,550 workers |
| Mean hourly wage | $19.47 |
| Median hourly wage | $17.06 |
| Annual mean wage | $40,510 |
| Management employment share | 5.02% |
| Management mean annual wage | $80,550 |
The estimates are from the BLS May 2023 NAICS 441300 occupational table. The annual wage is an annualized occupational estimate, while the hourly figures describe the distribution of wages across occupations in the industry.
BLS identified 23,290 general and operations managers, representing 4.06% of industry employment. Chief executives numbered 200, with a reported 19.8% employment relative standard error, and their mean annual wage was $114,070; the small estimate warrants caution.
BLS also reported 573,550 total workers and 28,790 management workers for the industry. Those counts describe the broad NAICS category, including tires and retail operations, rather than the narrower population of businesses devoted to customized builds.
Aftermarket Distribution, Scale, and Financial Outcomes
Large distributors and retailers reveal how parts and accessory demand moves through the aftermarket. Their reported financial outcomes are useful for industry scale, but none of the following company-wide figures is a direct measure of customization-only revenue.
- AutoZone’s Fiscal 2024 Annual Report reported $18.5 billion in fiscal-2024 net sales, up 5.9% year over year.
- AutoZone had commercial sales programs in 5,898 domestic stores on August 31, 2024; this is a commercial footprint, not a count of customization-installation locations.
- LKQ’s 2024 Form 10-K reported parts-and-services revenue of $5.465 billion, an increase of $491 million, or 9.9%, in 2024.
- LKQ said parts-and-services revenue represented 95.6% of consolidated revenue in 2024, including replacement, maintenance, specialty products, and services.
- LKQ’s 2024 guarantor-group revenue was $6.968 billion, with $2.776 billion in gross margin and $428 million in income from continuing operations.
- LKQ reported $693 million in open purchase orders for aftermarket inventory at December 31, 2024; purchase obligations are not realized customization sales.
- Operations outside the United States represented 52.4% of LKQ revenue in 2024, a global company mix rather than a measure of U.S. customization demand.
Supplier concentration provides another view of distribution dependence. Standard Motor Products’ 2024 Form 10-K reported that its three largest customers represented 60.7% of consolidated net sales in 2024: O’Reilly accounted for 28.4%, AutoZone for 18.8%, and NAPA for 13.5%.
These customer shares describe one supplier’s sales concentration, not consumer participation in vehicle customization. Taken together with the broader Census, BLS, SEMA, and retailer measures, they show an aftermarket with substantial retail, labor, and distribution scale while leaving the exact number of customized vehicles unmeasured by the supplied sources.