GM income up in 2023 despite strike; plug-in hybrids to return

DETROIT — General Motors’ net income rose 12% last year despite losing more than $1 billion when many of its plants were shut down by a six-week autoworkers’ strike. The company also announced that it will bring back some plug-in gas-electric hybrids as electric vehicle sales growth slows.

The Detroit automaker made just over $10 billion last year, up from $8.9 billion in 2022. Excluding one-time items, the company made $7.68 per share, easily surpassing the $7.57 projected on Wall Street, according to Factset.

Full-year revenue was $171.84 billion, about 10% more than in 2022. That also beat estimates of $167.26 billion.

The company predicts a small improvement in earnings this year even as it plans for lower vehicle selling prices due to increased discounts.

Shares of General Motors Co. closed up 7.8% on Tuesday.

GM said it expects net income will improve a little this year, to a range of $9.8 billion to $11.2 billion. It expects adjusted earnings per share in a range of $8.50 to $9.50, compared with $7.68 last year.

Due to $12.3 billion in North American pretax profit, about 45,000 members of the United Auto Workers will get profitsharing checks of $12,250, the company said.

Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson told reporters that GM is preparing for a 2% to 2.5% average sales price drop on vehicles this year compared to last year as inventory grows amid high interest rates. GM has planned for price cuts for the past couple of years, but they haven’t materialized, he said.

“It’s not actually what we’re seeing in the market today,” Jacobson said, adding that average sale prices “are actually holding up very similar to where we saw the end of 2023.”

Prices are stable for both internal combustion and electric vehicles, he said, bucking industry trends. He said GM plans to keep a 50-to-60-day supply of vehicles at U.S. dealers, enough to supply demand but limit discounting.

That may be difficult with inventory from all automakers growing to 2.7 million at the end of last year, edging closer to prepandemic levels of around 3.5 million.