General Motors narrowly recaptured the sales title from Toyota Motor North America in the U.S. for the second quarter and first half of the year in new-vehicle sales as supply improved and it saw increased sales to fleets.
But GM recorded a sales decline on Friday for the second quarter and first half compared with the year-ago periods.
GM’s second-quarter U.S. sales were down 15.4% as the auto industry continues to struggle with a global shortage of semiconductor chips and other production disruptions, which analysts predict will continue this year.
For the quarter, GM said it sold 582,401 vehicles compared with the 688,236 vehicles it sold in the year-ago period. Despite the decline, GM’s market share rose one point to an estimated 16.3%, according to J.D. Power PIN. For the first half, GM sold 1,095,247, down 17.7%.
GM’s sales to commercial, government and rental fleets increased by 29% supported by increased supply of vehicles such as the GMC Savana van, which reported a gain of 25% to 6,803 sold.
“GM’s sales and market share have grown each of the last three quarters, even with lingering supply chain disruptions,” Steve Carlisle, GM’s president, North America, said in a statement.
But GM warned supply chain disruptions will delay delivery of about 95,000 vehicles to dealers into the second half of the year. This is a result of the ongoing semiconductor shortage and other supply chain disruptions, said GM spokeswoman Colleen Oberc.
GM said there was pent-up demand for vehicles amid low inventories, which helped improve sales of certain vehicles such as the Chevrolet Colorado midsize pickup, for example, which reported a 52.3% gain in sales to 22,497. Its counterpart, the GMC Canyon, reported a 40.3% sales gain to 7,501. Or the Chevrolet Malibu sedan, which soared 563% to 32,487.
Carlisle said GM’s sales momentum will rely on launches of new electric vehicles and “the tremendous customer response to the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra.”
The heavy-duty Silverado and Sierra pickups are made at Flint Assembly. Sales of the heavy-duty Silverado rose 17.4% in the quarter and nearly 15% for the first half of the year, marking its best first half in retail sales since 2007.
Sales of the Sierra heavy-duty pickup climbed 31.7% for the quarter as GM managed to direct semiconductor chip parts to its pickup production. The heavy-duty pickups had sales gains in the first quarter too.
Beating Toyota
Semiconductor chips are used in a variety of car parts and there’s been a severe shortage of them for more than a year. The shortfall has crippled new car production across the industry. But GM has managed to secure more chip parts this year to help it improve its new-vehicle supply and win more sales than rival Toyota, analysts said.
“GM is in a better supply situation,” said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst for Cox Automotive. “The challenge for GM as well as all other automakers is to maintain a steady supply of parts so assembly plants can keep running at full speed and fill the product pipeline.”
Toyota was the top automaker in sales last year, topping GM for the first time in decades. Toyota also outsold GM in the first quarter.
On Friday, Toyota reported for the second quarter its U.S. sales dropped 22.9% to 531,105. For the first half of the year, it had U.S. sales of 1,045,697 vehicles, down 19.1%. It did not immediately break out quarterly sales.
Its sales were held down by its severe inventory shortages and production issues due to the COVID-19 surge in southeast Asia that hit its suppliers, Krebs said.
Industry overview
Stellantis also reported its U.S. sales Friday. Sales dropped 16%, from 485,312 to 408,521 vehicles, in the second quarter of 2022, compared with the same period the prior year. Ford Motor Co. reports its second-quarter sales results Tuesday.
Cox Automotive said it expects the industry to end the year down 17.3% compared with 2021 and it is revising its full-year 2022 new-vehicle sales forecast to 14.4 million units, down from 15.3 million.
Likewise, once all the sales figures are in next week, Edmunds predicts second-quarter new vehicle sales across the industry will improve only slightly from the first quarter, but land 20.8% lower than the year-ago quarter sales. Look for supply challenges to stick around for the foreseeable future and don’t wait for deals, Edmunds analysts said.
“Although most people are used to the end-of-summer and end-of-model-year sales events, automakers and dealers likely won’t be rolling out the barbecue grills or wacky waving tube men to promote discounts this year because they won’t have a surplus of inventory to clear,” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ executive director of insights. “A recovery in vehicle production in 2022 seems highly unlikely at this point.”
For automakers, it means profit margins will remain high and pent-up consumer demand will continue to build.
In the second quarter, the semiconductor chip shortage impacted the production of 1.2 million light-duty new vehicles built worldwide. Year to date, the production of 2.3 million new vehicles was impacted, according to AutoForecast Solutions.
EV sales
In the quarter, GM’s biggest sellers were the usual suspects: the Silverado and GMC heavy-duty full-size pickups.
In the quarter, GM sold 272 of the newly launched 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup, bringing the total sold so far this year to 371. GM sold 11,263 of the 2022 Chevrolet Bolt and Bolt EUV, down 38% from the year-ago quarter. GM is now building the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq SUV, which is expected to begin delivery to customers soon.
GM said it will gradually increase production of the Lyriq and Hummer in the second half. Next month, GM’s Ultium Cells LLC joint-venture with LG Energy Solutions will start making battery cells in Ohio to support expanded EV production.
GM CEO Mary Barra told analysts during a fourth-quarter earnings call that GM plans to sell 400,000 EVs before January 2024. Barra has also said GM expects record sales of the Bolt this year.
GM hits
GM said pent-up demand and improved availability helped drive increases in sales of the Chevrolet Camaro, which rose 63% to 4,545, Cadillac XT4, which increased 116% to 5,432 and Cadillac CT5, which was up 70% to 4,171.
In the full-size pickup market, GM said it had “very low inventory.” It reported 203,041 combined total sales of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, estimating retail market share of 44%.
The market share was supported by sales of heavy-duty pickups because sales of the light-duty Silverado slid 24.5% to 88,544 in the quarter and sales of the light-duty Sierra dropped by 37.5% to 33,533.
Compact SUVs did well: The GMC Terrain reported a sales gain of 37% to 22,758. The Chevrolet Equinox rose 9.4% to 60,642.
GM misses
But GM saw declines across its entire Buick lineup and in its large SUVs despite being popular and profit makers in the past.
Buick’s total sales for the quarter came in 56.1% lower than the year-ago period at 28,929. Comparatively, here’s how the other brands did:
- Cadillac: down 6.7% to 33,703.
- Chevrolet: down 10.5% to 387,582.
- GMC: down 13.7% to 132,055.
For the full-size SUVs, sales of the Cadillac Escalade fell by 15.2% to 9,221. Sales of the Chevy Tahoe declined by 24.5% to 21,069 and the Suburban fell 33.5% to 8,897. GMC Yukon sales dropped by 28.4% to 17,070.
Chevrolet’s midsize SUV, the Traverse, saw a sales dip of 54% to 20,842, but sales of the Corvette sports car rose 8.3% to 8,630.
New business in China
In other news, GM said it is setting up a premium import business in Shanghai. The separate unit will import GM’s most popular and profitable vehicles built and sold mostly in North America to China.
GM China signed a letter of intent with Shanghai’s Pudong New Area government that states the automaker will invest $100 million in the GM Premium Import business.
The portfolio will range from full-size SUVs and pickups to performance cars, GM said in a media release. The purpose is to “address evolving demand in the niche market, complementing GM’s locally produced model and brand lineup,” GM’s statement said.
Felix Weller, vice president of GM Premium Import, said the automaker will also bring in top talent to run the new business.
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Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.