GM’s sales declined slightly in 2019. Not bad for a strike year.

General Motors announced its full-year and Q4 sales U.S. numbers today. Overall, the numbers are almost shockingly good. GM was down about 2.3% year over year in total. By comparison, Toyota was down about 1.8% overall.

The strike did have an impact on deliveries. GM says that its Q4 North American wholesale deliveries were down 25% due to the strike. GM also points out that its Q4 full-sized truck deliveries were off by 17%. “Our fourth-quarter stocks were leaner than we wanted, but as we get ready to launch our all-new full-size SUVs, we look forward to another solid year in 2020,” said Kurt McNeil, vice president, U.S. Sales Operations.

Our look at the details of the numbers shows that only the Sierra was up in terms of trucks. All other models declined.

GM pointed out in its sales overview that the company shipped a million crossovers and a million trucks in 2019. “We’ve focused our resources on what our customers want – crossovers and trucks – and that has paid off,” said Kurt McNeil, vice president, U.S. Sales Operations. “In addition to our industry-leading crossover sales, our full-size truck franchise is unmatched. We’re pleased with our full-size pickup launch and we look forward to launching our segment-leading, all-new full-size SUVs in 2020.”

Scanning the list of non-truck vehicles for highlights, we see the following:

  • Equinox did very well.  Up 4% with sales of 346K units. Equinox is almost as large as all of Buick and Cadillac combined. From our standpoint, Equinox is GM’s only sales-competitive non-truck family vehicle.
  • Both Buick and Cadillac sales were flat.
  • Yukon and Suburban were both down. -7% and -14% respectively.
  • GM says of Blazer, “The all-new Chevrolet Blazer mid-size SUV debuted in 2019 and gained retail market share nearly every month.”
  • Cadillac Cars and Buick cars are basically dead. CTS down 60% in Q4 and under 1000 units sold in the quarter.
  • Chevy Bolt down significantly in 2019 to 16,416 units total for the year. This from GM, the “All-electric future” company.