autoevolution
 

GM October Sales Down 34 Percent

General Motors sold a total of 170,585 vehicles in October, with 73,466 sold cars and 97,119 delivered trucks, the American company said in a press statement. But more importantly, these figures do nothing more than to underline the decreasing sales trend recorded by most car manufacturer around the world, with GM claiming October brought the lowest monthly SAAR in the latest 25 years.

GM's car sales were reduced by no less than 34 percent in comparison with the same period of the last year while truck sales recorded a drop of 51 percent. Obviously, GM's representatives said the main responsible for these “disappointing figures” is the global economic crisis which massively affected both the US economy and the automotive industry.

“The market has been shrinking for three years, but in October we saw a dramatic decline for the industry and GM,” said Mark LaNeve, vice president, GM North America Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing. “ We are obviously disappointed in our results which reflect a difficult comparison with a strong year-ago October performance. More importantly, it also reflects an unprecedented credit crunch that is dramatically impacting the entire U.S. economy – from the housing market to big and small companies to banks to family run businesses.”

But even so, GM's officials claims that they managed to outpace rival companies, with better sales in August and September and similar results in October. “If you adjust for popularity growth, this is probably the worst industry sales month in the post-WWII era,” LaNeve explained.

GM hopes to boost its sales in the last two months of 2008 using the Red Tag Event which starts nationwide on November 4. Basically, GM's new campaign is supposed to offer special deals and price cuts on several GM models until the end of the year.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
About the author: Bogdan Popa
Bogdan Popa profile photo

Bogdan keeps an eye on how technology is taking over the car world. His long-term goals are buying an 18-wheeler because he needs more space for his kid’s toys, and convincing Google and Apple that Android Auto and CarPlay deserve at least as much attention as their phones.
Full profile

 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories