General Motors, despite more than a month of worker strikes against it, exceeded Wall Street’s third-quarter expectations but withdrew its full-year guidance due to the uncertainty brought by the strikes.
The Detroit automaker had $3.1 billion in profit, down 7.3% year-over-year as revenue rose 5.4% to $44.1 billion.
“Our supply chain team and logistics partners in North America have done great work improving the flow of vehicles from our assembly plants to our dealers,” said CEO Mary Barra in a letter to shareholders. “Our U.S. dealers helped us outperform the market with strong pricing and essentially flat incentives.”
GM also withdrew target electric-vehicle production volume because demand has failed to meet expectations. It will instead focus on increasing efficiencies with the goal of cutting production costs and turning greater profit, Barra wrote.
She addressed the United Auto Workers’ demands for more compensation, saying GM has offered the union record wage hikes and job security, including pay of roughly $84,000 a year for the majority of workers.
“It’s an offer that rewards our team members but does not put our company and their jobs at risk.”
UAW President Shawn Fain said GM’s quarterly results prove workers deserve a better take of profits. “Another record quarter, another record year. As we’ve said for months: record profits equal record contracts,” he said in a statement. “It’s time GM workers, and the whole working class, get their fair share.”
