I'd like to start by taking a moment on behalf of our Board, our entire team and myself to recognize Henry Tippie for everything he's done for our organization over the last 68 years.
During his distinguished career, not only was Henry our longest-serving CFO through a period for over 17 years, he was the architect of Rollins' purchase of Orkin in 1964.
Henry, along with Randall Rollins, our Chairman at the time, were the only two Rollins Directors present during our initial stock exchange listing in 1968, and again, on our 50th year New York Stock Exchange anniversary.
Revenue grew 9.8% to $535.6 million compared to $487.9 million for the same quarter in 2020.
Net income rose to $92.6 million or $0.19 per diluted share compared to $43.3 million or $0.09 per diluted share for the first quarter of last year.
It is not just the results we are pleased with, but the returns we are seeing in the business, highlighted by strong performance in our residential and termite service lines, growing 14.9% and 12.2%, respectively.
Further, our commercial business has improved every single quarter during 2020 and continued this steady progress once again this quarter, reaching 2.9% growth over the first quarter 2020.
And our total revenue, less significant acquisitions, grew 7.9% over first quarter 2020 as both our residential and termite segments presented double-digit growth of 12.8% and 11.2%, respectively.
This segment has enjoyed sequential improvement since last April, reaching 1.3% growth over first quarter of 2020.
We're pleased with the steady progress achieved over the past 12 months in this segment.
For the quarter, our mosquito revenue experienced growth of over 30%.
Even though we're still in early stages, for Orkin Canada, we've achieved routing improvements of over 20% at this time.
The first group that sold netted a $31 million gain included in our numbers this quarter.
Looking at the numbers, the first quarter revenues of $535.6 million increased 9.8% over the prior year's first quarter revenue of $487.9 million.
Our GAAP income before income taxes was $119.9 million or 116.3% above 2020.
Our GAAP net income was $92.6 million, up 114.1% compared to 2020.
And our GAAP earnings per share were $0.19 per diluted share.
When removing the positive impact of the property gain on the sale of $31 million, our non-GAAP income before income taxes was $88.8 million compared to $55.4 million in 2020 or up 60.3%.
Our non-GAAP net income was $69.8 million, up 61.2% compared to Q1 of 2020.
Our total revenue increase of 9.8% included 1.9% from significant acquisitions and the remaining 7.9% was from pricing and new customer growth.
In total, residential pest control, which made up 44% of our revenue, was up 14.9% and commercial, excluding fumigation pest control, which made up 35% of our revenue, was up 3.6%.
Termite and ancillary services, which made up approximately 20% of our revenue, were up 12.2%.
Again, total revenue, less significant acquisitions, were up 7.9%, and from that, residential was up 12.8%; commercial, ex-fumigation, increased 1.3%; and termite and ancillary grew by 11.2%.
In total, gross margins increased to 51.2% from 49.5% in the prior year's quarter.
Depreciation and amortization expenses for the quarter increased $2 million to $23.6 million, an increase of 9.3%.
Depreciation increased $920,000 due to acquisitions and planned IT upgrades, while amortization of intangible assets increased $1.1 million due to several acquisitions, including McCall Pest Control in December of 2020.
Sales, general and administrative expenses for the first quarter increased $4.3 million or 2.8% to $162.2 million or 30.3% of revenues.
This was down 6.5% compared to 2020, and the quarter produced savings in administrative salaries and benefits, travel and telephone savings from better negotiated contracts.
As for our cash, for the period ended March 31, 2021, we spent $17 million on acquisitions compared to $47.6 million during the same period last year.
We paid $39.4 million on dividends and had $7.8 million of capital expenditures, which was slightly higher compared to 2020.
We ended the period with $117.3 million in cash, of which $71.3 million is held by our foreign subsidiaries.
Yesterday, the Board of Directors approved a regular cash dividend of $0.08 per share that will be paid on June 10, 2021, to stockholders of record at the close of business on May 10, 2021.

Summary:
Revenue grew 9.8% to $535.6 million compared to $487.9 million for the same quarter in 2020.
Net income rose to $92.6 million or $0.19 per diluted share compared to $43.3 million or $0.09 per diluted share for the first quarter of last year.
Looking at the numbers, the first quarter revenues of $535.6 million increased 9.8% over the prior year's first quarter revenue of $487.9 million.
And our GAAP earnings per share were $0.19 per diluted share.