SCI reports on 2nd Quarter 2025 — Appears to be firing on all cylinders

August 4, 2025/Finance/

Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest by revenue, company in the public Death Care space, reported their 2nd Quarter financial results last week. On virtually all metrics the company performed better than they did for the same quarter of 2024. In addition, their numbers for the first-half of 2025, ending on June 30, also outperformed their numbers for the same period of 2024.

Here’s just a sampling of some of the percentage increases for SCI over the first-half of 2025 as compared to the first-half of 2024:

Revenue: Up 2.8%
Operating Income: Up 5.1%
Gross Profit: Up 5.8%
Net Income: Up 8.9%
Total Consolidated Funeral Revenue: Up 5.2%

In prepared remarks for the company’s press release, which you can access here, CEO and Chairman of Service Corporation International Tom Ryan made these comments:

“We are pleased to report adjusted earnings per share of $0.88, an impressive increase of 11% over the prior year quarter. Higher funeral revenue and effective fixed cost management drove significant growth in comparable funeral gross profit of 14.8% and solid margin expansion. Funeral revenue increased on a higher average revenue per funeral and higher core general agency revenue as we benefited from the change in our preferred preneed insurance provider.

In the cemetery segment, we continue to focus on sales production, which led to increases in both preneed and atneed sales production. A 5.3% increase in preneed sales production resulted in a modest increase in cemetery revenues during the quarter, and the preponderance of this increase will benefit us in future periods, as undeveloped property sold is constructed and recognized.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I think this is a very good report and a much needed reminder that your funeral business can continue to do very well in what, at many times, seems like an uphill struggle against inflation, cost pressures, staffing issues, and new options in Death Care.

Even as good as this report is there are some numbers that bear watching by SCI management. While the “Consolidated” numbers of funeral services performed has increased by about 2.5% for the first-half of 2025 as compared to the first-half of 2024, that same statistic in “Comparable” funeral home results has slightly decreased for the 2nd Quarter. “Comparable” meaning funeral homes that SCI has operated for at least one year while “Consolidated” includes new acquisitions.

Another number in the “Comparable” funeral home framework that might need some explanation is that for the 2nd Quarter of 2025, Preneed contracts are off about 11% from the same period of the previous year. It very well could be that that number is explained by the change of preneed provider for SCI and the dynamics of the change. One needs to continue to watch that number as time goes by to see if it is truly a one-time anomaly or if there is something to a lesser number of preneed contracts moving forward.

More news from the world of Death Care: