General Motors Co. said Friday its second-quarter sales fell 15% from a year ago thanks to supply and production problems that also led the auto maker to dial down quarterly sales and profit.
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told securities regulators Friday that it expects lower profit and sales for the three months ended in June as supply-chain snags and logistics issues continued, leaving the auto maker with 95,000 unfinished vehicles built in June waiting for chips and parts to be completed.
“Notably, however, GM expects that substantially all of these vehicles will be completed and sold to dealers before the end of 2022,” Joseph Spak at RBC said in a note after the news. “So while disappointing, GM views this mostly as a timing issue.”
GM stock wavered between gains and losses for most of Friday, and most recently was up 0.7% in midday trading, bucking a downdraft for the broader equity markets. GM stock has lost about 46% so far this year, compared with losses of around 21% for the S&P 500 index.
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GM said it expects to report second-quarter profit between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion, well below the FactSet consensus of $2.46 billion. GM still expects profit of $9.6 billion to $11.2 billion for 2022.
The year now looks “back-end loaded,” and investors are trying to figure out if the mid-point or low-end of the range is more likely, Spak said. “GM’s guidance ‘policy’ is to consider the mid-point base case,” the analyst said.
GM sold 582,401 vehicles in the U.S. in the second quarter. It expects its market share to have grown 1 percentage point to an estimated 16.3%.
“Pent-up demand” and increased availability boosted sales of some of its more storied vehicles, such as the Chevy Camaro, the company said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that GM was making only about a dozen electric GMC Hummers a day at a renovated Detroit factory. The electric Hummer has a waitlist of about 77,000 orders.
