2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
General Motors made a strong profit in the fourth quarter. GM subsidiary Opel is still on the way out of the red.
The SUV and pickup boom in the home market and strong business in China are making the tills ring at General Motors (GM). In the fourth quarter, the surplus rose compared to the previous year's figure from 1.1 billion to 6.3 billion dollars (5.8 billion euros), as the Opel parent company announced in Detroit on Wednesday.
However, the figures are difficult to compare because the previous year’s result suffered heavily from high recall costs following a series of breakdowns due to defective ignition locks. But operationally, too, things recently went better than expected - profit adjusted for special factors increased from 2.4 to 2.8 billion dollars and thus reached a record high. GM's sales in the final quarter were stable over the previous year at $ 39.6 billion.
Opel reduces loss
In contrast, as expected, Opel has not yet left the red in 2015. According to the balance sheet presented on the parent company General Motors (GM), the bottom line in the European business was an operating loss of 813 million dollars (744 million euros), a good half billion less than in the previous year (1369 million dollars). In the fourth quarter of 2015, the operating loss in GM's European business fell to 298 million US dollars from 393 million dollars in the final quarter of 2014.
Currency effects and the withdrawal from the Russian market weighed on business. The return to profitability is planned for this year. Opel boss Karl-Thomas Neumann confirmed the plans in a letter to the employees: “We are keeping our sights firmly on the breakeven point. That is and will remain an ambitious goal, but without ambition there is no progress."
Sales of Opel and Vauxhall increase slightly
Sales of cars from the European brands Opel and Vauxhall rose slightly in 2015 from 1.076 million to 1.112 million, as GM further reported. At the start of 2016, the brand with the lightning bolt sold significantly more cars on its German home market. For the first month, sales increased by 22 percent compared to January 2015. There are great hopes for the new edition of the compact Astra model. (dpa)
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