GM reports May Sales: Up 4.7%, Retail up 8.5%

[igor]

http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayS...=2&docid=36708

[Chaz_23]

Best month in the year, May must have been "deliver to rental companies" month. Everything's up. Only CTS, DTS, Malibu, SSR, GTO, and 9-2X are down from April. Grand Prix more than doubled sales compared to April, lol. Cobalt almost doubled.
More realistically, Aura still struggling at 4784. Looks like the Outlook will overtake it in June.
Epsilon as a whole selling poorly, less than Delta for the first time in a while. New Malibu can't get here quick enough.

[mikesright]

I'm surprised by a couple of figures this month. First of all, the Lambda's are starting to kick some butt in the marketplace. Acadia had a terrific month of more than 9,000 sales, Outlook took in more than 4,000 sales, and Enclave took 1,800 sales. Not bad at all!

Look at Impala this month! 35,000 sales! Fleet was still considerably down for the month, too (overall company), and I'm pretty sure that the Pontiac Grand Prix was the fleet baby with sales up as high as they were. Silverado and Sierra had impressive months, Silverado became the sales leader again this month, up 8,000 units from last year, and Sierra pushed out 2,000 more this month too. Tundra, F150 who?

[likearock00]

Great news for GM and the new cross overs! Lets keep it going!!

Chevy truck sales- 63,790
GMC full size truck sales- 19,467
Toyota full size truck sales- 17,727

I love it!

[paul8488]

Whohoo! Some great news there! Acadia at over 9000 is great. I can't believe the Enclave sold 1800 already! MKX is at 3490 for the month... Enclave is going to catch it in no time! Outlook is suffering from Aura-itis... great vehicle that no one is buying.

Impala is smoking... I really hope they've been backing off of fleet sales... it's on target for close to 350,000 this year. When's the last time GM had a car selling at 35,000 units per month?

When I see the Fusion at 14,000 I don't feel so bad for the Malibu at 11,000 (albeit with more fleet sales). G6 is holding its own, also around 12,000. Nice to see the Grand Prix rebound, even if it's likely mostly fleet.

I expected Aveo to tank with the new competition, but it's doing A-okay. Especially considering the hatch hasn't been updated yet. 22,000 units is respectable for Cobalt. Even Monte Carlo eeked out an increase! You know it's a good month when...!

There clearly isn't a huge demand for a Cobalt-twin at Pontiac... even the Ion managed to outsell it (almost double, actually). I don't know what GM had hoped for Sky and Solstice, but I'd wager they're pretty close to on-target.

Equinox needs a redo... sad to see it doing so poorly against the Escape. For the month the Chevy Silverado is beating the F-series, though for the year the Ford is ahead. It'll be close... how cool would it be for Chevy to beat Ford, without having to factor in GMC sales!

Fords' slightly winning the losing midsize SUV battle over the Trailblazer. The Ranger is barely ahead of the Colorado on the year though. HHR is up a bit, as is H3. New versions of both (SS and H3T) will help when they finally come out.

I really love these reports, especially when they have lots of ups and few downs! Buick needs better sedans, Saturn needs more advertising / dealers, Chevy needs the new Malibu and a new Cobalt to really move forward, Pontiac will do very well with the G8, and Cadillac... well lets hope the CTS makes up for all their other sins!

[jbartley]

Originally Posted by paul8488

Outlook is suffering from Aura-itis... great vehicle that no one is buying.

i beg to differ. it is an odd vehicle, and a steep price for the traditional saturn buyer and sales have increased every month by at least 500 units. not bad at all i say.

Acadia is just out of control! i think it'll be doing well over 120k it's first year!
And before anyone complains about the SRX consider that it sells within about 5k units of the BMW x5, so I think sales are good, but they could be better.

I don't know if the Aura needs more advertising or just better commercials. the "rethink american" will help, but i think they need to place their ads better.

equinox? ouch. enough said.

are the new VUE's out? is that why it jumped?

[magneto112]

Great to see sales at GM picking up. The new CUV's are outstanding vehicles. I think they are great performers.

It does suck that the Aura is only selling 5K a month. Nothing wrong with the car at all, they just need to break free from its history. It'll happen in due time (plus the fact that the Camry is selling 50K a month doesnt help much either).

And thats a good point someone brought up about the Grand Prix. It nearly doubled its sales this month, yet overall sales for the year to date are down. Was there some sort of delay with production or something?

Trucks will always do good for GM. No need for me to really comment on that. Though it is nice to see them with some nice improvements.

[neshapop]

Originally Posted by Chaz_23

Best month in the year, May must have been "deliver to rental companies" month. Everything's up. Only CTS, DTS, Malibu, SSR, GTO, and 9-2X are down from April. Grand Prix more than doubled sales compared to April, lol. Cobalt almost doubled.
More realistically, Aura still struggling at 4784. Looks like the Outlook will overtake it in June.
Epsilon as a whole selling poorly, less than Delta for the first time in a while. New Malibu can't get here quick enough.

NACOTY Aura May 4784 YTD 22,535
GMI Most hated car of the year: LaCrosse May 4913 YTD 19,307

[boblutzfan]

This past weekend I helped my sister move from San Antonio, TX to Mississippi and along the way I saw tons of Silverado's, Sierra's, Acadias and even Outlooks. Seems the deep south loves GM trucks and SUVs. It was good to see so many of the launch products out on the highways.

These sales numbers are very encouraging. Could this be the year that the Silverado outsells the F-150? Anyone have a comparison of year to date sales numbers?

[GM_Fanatic]

Those Saturn numbers are looking great! They are building a lot of momentum, and the Astra hasn't even hit dealers yet!

I think Lambda will more then cover the GMT360 loss. Especially when the Traverse hits with Chevy.

[paul8488]

Originally Posted by jbartley

i beg to differ. it is an odd vehicle, and a steep price for the traditional saturn buyer and sales have increased every month by at least 500 units. not bad at all i say.

Okay, maybe not bad considering the brand... but it's frustrating to see it down around 5000 units with the Aura. I really hoped both would be around 10,000, though slow but sure wins the race, right?

Hate to say it again, but imagine the Outlook had been a Chevy... it'd probably be close to 20,000 a month by now.

[boblutzfan]

The Lambda's are kicking ass. The Acadia is really gaining steam. May break the 10,000 per month level in June. The Buick dealerships here in San Antonio can't keep the new Enclave in stock. I predict it will over take the Outlook by end of summer.

The Outlook and Aura are doing ok...not great but ok. They will go a long way to moving the brand up market - even if just 4-5K per month a piece.

[jbartley]

Originally Posted by paul8488

Okay, maybe not bad considering the brand... but it's frustrating to see it down around 5000 units with the Aura. I really hoped both would be around 10,000, though slow but sure wins the race, right?

Hate to say it again, but imagine the Outlook had been a Chevy... it'd probably be close to 20,000 a month by now.

Maybe, but they might not have been the same customers. That's probably 5000 customers that would have bought a Mazda or Toyota.

[boblutzfan]

Originally Posted by jbartley

Maybe, but they might not have been the same customers. That's probably 5000 customers that would have bought a Mazda or Toyota.

Excellent point.

[spykebn]

Everyone has to remember that Saturn was a small fringe brand with poor products and that is how most of the public views it. Now that the brand is completely new it will take some time for the public to notice. Give it time, Saturn grew by 50% this month, this will help. As sales grow more and more people with notice it and see how they are producing great new products. This will lead to more sales, which will lead to even more sales. Turning around a brand takes time and it has only been a year since new product started to flow. Give it another year to take hold.