Executive director Rick Armstrong founded the business’ first branch on St Asaph St, Christchurch, in 1993. At the company’s head office in Mt Wellington, Armstrong told BusinessDesk he wanted to disrupt the country’s current flair for the negative.

“Everything I’m reading and hearing about economically is pretty average at the moment, and I was like, this is actually kind of irritating, because we’re doing okay. We’ve had a really good year. “We’ve managed to have a significant increase on last year and we’ve grown the business, we’ve grown our volume of sales, we’ve grown the revenue, we’ve opened new dealerships.”

Armstrong’s has increased its headcount by about 70 employees this year and is recruiting for 40 more roles. “The market was tough, we’ve been fighting an economy, as you know, and also the car industry’s been in quite a big state of change.”

“I think that’s the key to a business, isn’t it? Like a well-managed business is always going to be successful in a bad market, there’s always room for high performers. Despite the market, there’s always room for somebody to do better than their competitors.”

‘Non-traditional’ strategy
Armstrong’s chief executive Troy Kennedy said it’s been a “year of growth” for the business, adding four new dealerships to the fleet alongside a number of new car brands to its distribution business.

“I think we had a non-traditional strategy over the last couple of years in a tougher market. So, when volume in the car markets reduces in size, a lot of people go, ‘Right, we’re going to reduce marketing, reduce our head count, shrink our business and try to make money that way’.

“It was actually Rick who challenged me to take quite the opposite approach.” Kennedy said the business increased its marketing spend, maintained its headcount, grew volume and pushed cars into the market.

“I think that we came into the year with a bit of a tailwind by really pushing volume throughout 2024, and we were kind of well set up into 2025, and then we’ve managed to open new businesses, which have brought more customers and more sales, and get momentum that way.”

Kennedy said being a “people-to-people” business remains a priority.