GM "Core Brand" Sales Up 30 Percent, Reported Retail Sales Up Only 3 Percent

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Corporate fleet sales were back with a vengeance last month, as GM admitted that these lower-profit fleet sales made up a full 29 percent of its total sales in January. Those total sales, including the winding-down Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and HUMMER brands were up only 13.6 percent. Core brand sales were up 30 percent in total, but again, most of those gains were in fleet sales, as core brand retail sales gained only 3 percent over GM’s moribund performance in January 2009. Zoinks! Full release in PDF format here, details after the jump.

Chevrolet saw total sales rise 36.4 percent (105,294 units), with its car sales up 102 percent, truck sales falling 11.9 percent and CUVS up 68 percent. Cobalt was a strong seller, up 149.7 percent to 12,962 units, likely driven by fleet sales. Malibu (+76.5%, 16,439 units) and Impala (+55%, 10,939 units) were the other major drivers of Chevy car volume. Avalanche and Silverado dropped single-digit percentages, while Suburban (+8%, 2,315 units) and Tahoe (+18.4%, 4,556 units) rescued Chevy trucks from disaster. Equinox (+76%, 9,513) and HHR (+220%, 5,452) enjoyed robust growth, while Traverse increased slightly to 5,724 units.

Buick was up 44 percent altogether, with cars up 40 percent and CUVs up 50 percent. Predictably, the new LaCrosse (+185%, 4,246 units) and the Enclave (+50%, 4,075) were up, and Lucerne (-37, 1,740) was way down.

Cadillac actually dropped .7 percent, as it continues to be one of GM’s most problematic brands sales-wise. Every Caddy car nameplate was down by double digits, from CTS (-25%, 2,565) to DTS (-54%, 618). Collectively the Escalade triplets were off 25.7 percent with total volume of 1,754 units, but SRX made up for the drop, rising 264 percent to 3,234 units.

Overall GMC sales volume was up 11 percent, with core truck sales falling 27 percent and CUVs making up for them with 201 percent growth. Canyon fell below 1,00 units, Sierra slid 9.3 percent to 7,271 units, while Yukon and Yukon XL fell by about a third, ending up with 1,503 and 1,222 units respectively. Acadia was up 68 percent to 5,460, while Terrain logged 4,302 units.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Tooling designer Tooling designer on Feb 02, 2010

    Please explain to me how "3% RISE IN RETAIL SALES" can be credited to fleets. I understand I am an evil GM fanboy/apologist (LOL) but I cannot understand how this can be a negative somehow. Sure it's against a horrible jan 2009 but then again aren't every automakers stats versus a horrible 2009? Deal with it GM haters! GM took 1 small step in the right direction this month. Get over yourselves, we (GM employees/supporters) understand there is a LONG, LONG road ahead. Also, just to clarify something GM isn't exactly at the brink any longer now that they have been restructured/propped up (whatever you wanna call it) with YOUR generous donations. Remember this is the exuse the Ford haters use to explain why Ford is doomed. YOU GOTTA KEEP YOUR DOOMSDAY STORYLINES STRAIGHT!

  • Odomeater Odomeater on Feb 04, 2010

    "And, let’s face it, 535xi is a far more sophisticated car – drivetrain speaking." Yes, the BMW breaks a lot more!

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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