GM Says It Sold A Lot Of All-New Models In 2016, And Somehow, That’s Bad News

While redesigned models such as the 2016 Malibu had their best year

                                        https://www.carscoops.com/author/sergiutcarscoops-com/

by Sergiu Tudose

February 11, 2017 at 03:40

While redesigned models such as the 2016 Malibu had their best year since 1980 in terms of sales, GM still registered an “unfavorable” product mix due to strong sales. Yes, really.

During their Q4 earnings report, GM noted that North American profit margins fell last year due to “increased volume of recently launched passenger cars such as the Chevrolet Cruze, Malibu and Spark.”

While that sounds counter-intuitive, the fact is that selling more of these cars hurt GM since they make very little money on them. At the same time, the automaker still had to lay off 1,200 Ohio workers due to poor Cruze sales, as cars continue piling up at dealerships nation-wide with few customers in sight.

Analysts say that GM actually earned a record $12 billion in North America last year, though almost all of it from big SUVs and pickups, as reported by Autonews.

For 2017, GM projects another overall strong year, with North American profit margins of at least 10%.