General Motors may have a lot to show off at this year’s North American Auto Show in Detroit, and global sales may impress, but they need to check their market share again; it is still sliding downwards or remaining stagnant, according to a Reuters report.
Despite launching various new product lines, replacing 70 percent of the US sales volume since 2011, the company could not go further than 17.9 percent market share in America this past year. This is the same number they had in 2012 and lower than when they reached top of the market at 19.6 percent in 2011.
Mark Reuss, GM’s new chief of global product development, was frank about GM’s past and its future.
“Market share increases are not instantaneous,” Reuss said. “We’ve got a lot of baggage. Don’t underestimate what people thought of us, or these brands, through these hardships and 30 years.”
Yet despite the market share situation, plant tooling shutdowns and seemingly never-ending marking executive shifts, GM’s recent pricing and incentive methods are putting profit margins ahead of volume. And money talks a lot louder than market share.
“Our third quarter profit margins ran over 9 percent,” Reuss said. “That’s a big deal.”
Comments
The article states “replacing 70% of sales volume since 2011” I’m taking that to be new product and my feelings on this not increasing market share is this: A lot of people wont buy the first year of anything therefore sales percentages for market share are bound to not have increased yet. Give things another year or so and then see where we are. I’ll bet the increases will be there because I feel the products are that good.
Lacking in market share is no surprise. It isn’t rocket science:
A Denver area Ford dealer sells extended cab 4×4 Ecoboosts for under $30k, while all Chevy dealers want mid $30k for cheap looking regular cab base models with the 4.3 V6.
The average Joe isn’t THAT bad at math and economics.
Chevy in particular has snubbed certain market segment; an example being no Cruze variants or Malibu couple a la Honda. Chevy needs a smaller Trax like crossover, a range that covers the market more effectively like Ford does. Lastly, with the death of Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer, Chevy could stand a more girthy line up in an effort to hold some traditional GM shoppers–AS, while overpriced, is a good.example.
Reuss is right about GM being a group of damage brands. My first car was a Pontiac Grand Am, and I can still remember a bud saying, after I announced buying out, “I’m sorry”. I was stunned back then but get now how badly bruised GM has become.