[FenwickHockey65]

The First of GM’s All-New Pickups Posts a 20 Percent Q1 Gain
General Motors

April 2, 2019

• Industry retail sales, consumer sentiment rebounding
• GM average transaction prices set new first-quarter company record
• Chevrolet Trax, Equinox and Colorado set first-quarter company sales records

DETROIT — General Motors (NYSE: GM) announced today that it delivered 665,840 vehicles in the first quarter of 2019, with a selling mix of trucks, SUVs and crossovers above 80 percent. GM’s focus on these vibrant segments helped it earn the highest average transaction prices for any first quarter in the company’s history.

The Chevrolet Trax, Equinox and Colorado all set GM first-quarter sales records and the GMC Acadia posted its best quarter ever. The all-new Cadillac XT4 was the best-selling vehicle in its segment and the Buick Enclave was up 28 percent versus a year ago.

The all-new full-size pickups from Chevrolet and GMC are also off to a very strong start.

“Our production launch was very smooth and crew cab sales are brisk, especially those with premium trims,” said Kurt McNeil, U.S. vice president, Sales Operations. “We look forward to improving availability of our wide-range of cabs, trim series and powertrains.”

• First-quarter 2019 average transaction prices for GM's all-new, light-duty pickups were $8,040 higher compared to their outgoing models in the first quarter of 2018, with the GMC Sierra leading the segment, according to J.D. Power PIN estimates.
• Combined sales of the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 crew cabs — the first of the company’s all-new full-size pickups to launch — were up 20 percent year over year.
• Crew-cab production mix is currently running above 70 percent to meet strong customer demand, up 10 percentage points on average from the previous-generation trucks.
• More than 95 percent of the all-new GMC Sierra 1500 crew cab sales are high-end trims including SLT, AT4 and Denali.

Availability of all-new regular-cab and double-cab pickups was very limited during the quarter due to launch timing, but full production of all cab styles started in March and they currently are arriving in dealer showrooms.

GM will begin the next phase of its full-size pickup truck launch in the second half of the year with the all-new 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD.

“We are bullish on pickups and expect to gain sales momentum throughout the year,” said McNeil. “We are installing capacity in Flint to build more HD pickups in total, more crew cab models, more dualies and diesel models, too, all in response to dealer and customer demand.”

Other new models launching this year include the XT6, Cadillac’s first three-row crossover, and the CT5, Cadillac’s new luxury-sport sedan. The all-new Chevrolet Blazer is also gaining momentum, and the brand will begin national advertising for the vehicle during the second quarter as production ramps up.

Solid U.S. Economy, Strong GM Operating Discipline

GM sales in the first quarter of 2019 were down 7 percent year over year compared to a very strong first quarter of 2018.

“After a slow start to the year, the retail SAAR has risen each month since January,” said Elaine Buckberg, GM chief economist. “Consumer sentiment continued to recover in March and the other key drivers of auto sales like employment, wage growth and household balance sheets are healthy. The Fed paused in raising interest rates, which eases a headwind facing auto sales. Overall, the U.S. economy is in solid shape, which bodes well for the industry outlook.”

GM’s Commercial deliveries, which are another barometer of economic strength, grew at an average annual rate of more than 7 percent from 2012 to 2017 and were up 11 percent year over year in 2018. Commercial deliveries were close to flat to a very strong first quarter a year ago, even with limited availability of regular light- and heavy-duty pickups, and heavy-duty crew-cab pickups.

GM has demonstrated continued strong operating discipline and is very well positioned heading into the second quarter:

• The company’s incentive spending as a percentage of average transaction price was 13 percent, down close to a full percentage point year over year, according to J.D Power PIN.
• GM’s per-unit incentive spending was down $175 year over year, as domestic competitors increased their spending in the quarter, according to J.D. Power PIN.
• Average transaction prices rose $938 to a first-quarter record of $35,881, according to J.D. Power PIN.
• Inventory is a healthy 818,967 units heading into the second quarter, which tends to be a strong quarter for industry sales.

[FenwickHockey65]

Since the quarterly thing is trendy these days...


2019 Q1 Sales



Ford Motor Company: Down 1.6%, 586,956 units sold
Toyota: Down 5%, 543,716 units sold
FCA: Down 3.1%, 501,200 units sold
Honda: Up 2%, 369,787 units sold
Nissan: Down 12.1%, 365,851 units sold
Hyundai-Kia: Up 4.6%, 288,383 units sold
VW Group: Up 2.7%, 87,075 units sold
BMW NA: Down 1.9%, 83,123 units sold
Mercedes-Benz USA: Down 9.3%, 78,878 units sold

[DenverTaco07]

The auto business is tough.

GM stock holding despite the news, up .06 right now.

[90503]

I know they spin this monthly report to look as good as possible....but headlining a 20% increase of the top sellers vs. a 7% overall decline has still got to be disappointing.

The Blazer??....only 3K units for the quarter? It has been announced since June of last year and seems like a weak sales number....Cadillac numbers seem low as well...

I say the SUV and Truck craze has passed it's peak and they will be stuck with a lot of expensive non-selling inventory....

P.S. I still think getting rid of the Impala will be a mistake they will soon regret...lol.

[oneredry]

Not sure if this has anything to do with it. but on FB all I see is 99.5% bashing GM for closing plants, shipping stuff over to different countries etc... This across the board with Chevy, GM, some GMC and some Cadillac. but don't see to much on Buick. its almost like an embarrassment to GM as to why they post/rub salt in the wound when they know they will be attacked by all it seems like.

[rocket403]

There has been a media campaign against GM because of the Oshawa plant closing paid for by the Canadian Auto Union, big TV adds ran during the Super Bowl. There will be some blowback because of this closing in Ontario maybe Quebec not sure about the rest of Canada.

[90503]

Interesting the Bolt EV sales are still abysmal. No mention in the report of the glorious all-electric GM future that apparently no-one is waiting for.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by 90503

I know they spin this monthly report to look as good as possible....but headlining a 20% increase of the top sellers vs. a 7% overall decline has still got to be disappointing.

The Blazer??....only 3K units for the quarter? It has been announced since June of last year and seems like a weak sales number....Cadillac numbers seem low as well...

I say the SUV and Truck craze has passed it's peak and they will be stuck with a lot of expensive non-selling inventory....

P.S. I still think getting rid of the Impala will be a mistake they will soon regret...lol.

Its very hard to spin 'overall sales are down' into a positive. Picking 'top sellers are up' was a clever way to try and hide it though. Probably the best point for them was bringing in an extra 8k on full size pickups.



I don't believe the Blazer is in full production yet. Only started in December, and that could very well have been part of some shenanigans to keep it as a 2019 model. For whatever reason, you can't start building a brand new model of something in the current calendar year. You can continue building, but you can't start. So, if job #1 rolls off the line December 31st, 2018 it can still be a 2019 model & the next 50,000 that get built in the coming months are also 2019s. But delayed by a day & job 1 is completed on January 1st, 2019? They're all 2020s now. It is very, very dumb.



Cadillac was actually the best brand for GM, only down 2% Q to Q. But thats a touch misleading. Everything at the brand was down, except for the XT4 which was up by 7000 units (vs not existing a year ago). Also, ATS sales fell off a cliff, down 86% to barely 500 units. It was outsold by the Buick Cascada & the Chevy LCF ... which I had to lookup & is their medium duty 'Low cab-forward' trucks (I think they're rebadged Izuzu's). It was the worst selling model in GM's entire lineup.



As for cars vs trucks vs SUVs vs crossovers ... at least at GM, I only noticed 2 cars whose sales were up. The Malibu (0.1%, or 47 more cars over 3 months) and Camaro (2.5%, or 91 more cars). The rest were down, and often by fairly big margins. Trucks were nearly flat in total, but still down a bit. Their SUVs were all down a little as well. Crossovers were the only group that was basically steady to positive last quarter at GM -huge when the company is down overall.



I really can't think of a scenario where there is a rapid, massive shift towards large sedans. If gas prices spike, people will want small cars, hybrids, or EVs -thus making canning the Cruze & Volt bad ideas but not the Impala. If auto sales crater in a recession, nobody is going to be scrambling to buy a new anything. And consumer preferences usually don't change faster than development cycles.



Also: for those that want to blame GM's sales on the plant closures, does this also affect Nissan? And Toyota? And Mercedes? They were all down by 5+ percent as well. My pet theory on product boycotts is that nearly all the people who say they won't be buying from company X because of <bad thing> probably were never going to buy from them anyway. Or they eventually buy anyway since few people ever cared in the first place & there aren't any actual consequences for reneging on a boycott.