GM far exceeds second-quarter estimates, will restructure struggling China business

DETROIT — General Motors is raising several key financial targets for 2024 after easily beating Wall Street’s earnings expectations for the second quarter, while it restructures money-losing operations such as autonomous vehicles and its China business.

The Detroit automaker now expects full-year adjusted earnings before interest and taxes of between $13 billion and $15 billion, or $9.50 and $10.50, up from previous guidance of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 and $10, previously. It also raised its adjusted automotive free cash flow forecast, while slightly lowering the range for its net income attributable to stockholders by less than 1%.

Here’s how the company performed in the second quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: $3.06 adjusted vs. $2.75 expected
• Revenue: $47.97 billion vs. $45.46 billion expected

Shares of GM were up about 4% during premarket trading. The stock has risen roughly 38% in 2024.

GM’s second-quarter results included net income attributable to stockholders, which excludes some dividend payouts, of $2.93 billion, up 14.3% from $2.57 billion a year earlier. On a per-share basis, GM reported earnings of $2.55, up from $1.83 a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes came in at $4.44 billion, up 37.2%, and adjusted earnings per share were $3.06.

Its unadjusted net income was $2.88 billion, up 14.8% from a year earlier. GM said its revenue for the second quarter was a fresh quarterly record for the automaker, up 7.2% compared with $44.75 billion a year earlier.

“It was truly a great first half and second quarter, and we’re positioned to have a very strong year,” GM CFO Paul Jacobson said during a media briefing. “We expect to see some seasonally higher commodity costs, as well as some pricing headwinds that we’ve assumed in the second half of the year.”

Alongside the strong earnings, GM on Tuesday said it is indefinitely pausing production of its Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle, triggering a $600 million special charge in the second quarter. It also said it’s attempting to restructure a joint venture in China with SAIC amid continuing losses, including a $104 million loss in equity income during the second quarter.

As they have in recent years, GM’s North American operations, driven by truck sales, were largely responsible for the company’s second-quarter beat and guidance raise. Specifically, pricing on the vehicles has remained more resilient than GM anticipated at the beginning of the year, according to Jacobson.

GM said its average transaction price during the second quarter was roughly $50,000, with incentives lower than the U.S. industry average.

The North America division increased adjusted earnings during the quarter to $4.43 billion, up nearly 40% from a year earlier. The unit reported a profit margin of 10.9%, up 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier.

While GM outperformed in several areas, it did not achieve an anticipated return to profitability in China, where the automaker has experienced significant declines in earnings.

The automaker’s Chinese operations posted an equity loss of $104 million – its second consecutive quarterly loss after hitting a roughly 20-year low in 2023.

“In China, we’ve been taking steps to reduce our inventories, align production to demand, and reduce our fixed costs, but it’s clear that the steps that we’ve taken, while significant, have not been enough,” Jacobson said during a media briefing. “We’re working closely with our JV partner to restructure the business, to make it profitable and sustainable, while ensuring that it doesn’t require incremental capital.”

GM’s international operations, which include South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East, reported adjusted earnings of $50 million during the second quarter, down 78.8% from a year earlier. Its financing arm reported adjusted earnings of $822 million, up 7.3% from a year earlier.

GM continues to target production and vehicle wholesales of between 200,000 and 250,000 all-electric vehicles in North America, despite slower-than-expected adoption.

Its EV deliveries during the quarter increased 40% compared with a year earlier to 21,930 units. Still, EVs made up only 3.2% of its total second-quarter U.S. sales.

Jacobson reconfirmed that GM expects its EVs to be profitable on a production, or contribution-margin basis, once it reaches output of 200,000 units by the fourth quarter.

“EVs are going to be an earning headwind as we scale, until we reach variable profits positive during the fourth quarter, then they should start to become a tail wind for EBIT,” he said.

Jacobson declined to discuss potential plans to delay or cancel the automaker’s future EV battery cell production in North America, aside from two joint venture plants currently producing cells with LG Energy Solution in Ohio and Tennessee.

“We’re going to continue to be guided by the customer. We’re rapidly scaling in cell plants one and two,” Jacobson said. “We have nothing to comment on right now.”

Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said the automaker’s goal of reaching EV production capacity of 1 million vehicles in North America by the end of 2025 was heavily in doubt.