A Chevrolet pickup truck is seen at the Knapp Chevrolet dealership in Houston, Texas, on February 02, 2022.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
General Motors’ U.S. first-quarter sales fell 20% year over year, in line with analysts’ expectations, as ongoing supply chain issues disrupted production and kept dealer inventories tight.
However, GM’s North America chief said semiconductor chip supply is improving and he expects GM to post year-over-year sales increases through the second half of 2022.
GM’s plants were able to operate “at near normal levels” in the first quarter, said Steve Carlisle, president of GM’s North American business.
The time lag between production and dealer deliveries meant that GM’s total U.S. sales lagged those of competitor Toyota, which took over GM’s U.S. sales crown in 2021. GM delivered 512,846 vehicles in the first quarter. Toyota said its U.S. sales in the first quarter fell 14.7% year over year to 514,492 vehicles.
GM has been scrambling to rebuild dealer inventories, which have been hit hard by production cuts amid global shortages of semiconductor chips and other essential automotive components. GM said it sequentially increased its production in North America in both the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 as chip supplies improved.
At the end of March, GM had about 274,000 vehicles in its US inventory, including vehicles in transit to dealerships — up from about 200,000 at the end of the year and 129,000 at the end of September.
“Supply chain disruptions are not fully behind us,” Carlisle said. “But we expect to continue to exceed 2021 production levels, especially in the second half of the year.”
Sales of most GM vehicles were down year over year, but there were a few exceptions. GM’s large truck-based SUVs — the Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, and GMC Yukon — all posted slightly higher sales than in the first quarter of 2021, as did heavy-duty versions of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, as GM prioritized production and Deliveries of its most profitable products.
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