GM Q2 Profits: $1.2 Billion, Down Due To New Pickup Launch Costs

General Motors said that costs associated with the launch of their redesigned pickup trucks and weaker results in Asia (except for China) lowered net income for the second fiscal quarter of 2013 by 19% from last year, to $1.2 billion.

Overall revenue was up 4% to just over 39 billion dollars. Income before taxes, interest and non-recurring items like GM’s purchase of $200 million worth of preferred shares in GM’s Korean subsidiary, was up 7% to $2.3 billion. Even with the rollout costs for the new Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, pretax profits in North America were up 4.5% to $2.0 billion. As with Ford, GM’s loses in Europe shrunk, though by a much larger figure, dropping to $110 million from $394 million in Q2 2012. Since coming out of bankruptcy in 2009, GM has made over $19 billion in 14 straight quarterly profits.

Though dealers were selling off remaining stock of the old 2013 pickup truck models, which usually means more cash incentives to move them out to make place for the revised trucks, strong U.S. demand for pickup trucks offset the downward price pressure. Transaction prices for GM’s full-size pickup trucks were up 5% to $36,641. Analysts says that GM makes an average of about $10,000 for every pickup truck they sell. Silverado and Sierra U.S. sales combined rose 23 percent through June, to 330,219. GM expects the second half of 2013 to be even better than the first, with the all new C7 Corvette Sting Ray and the new, larger Cadillac CTS arriving at dealers.

For GM International Operations, which includes Asia, Australia, and Russia, overall pretax profit was down 64%, to $228 million, though pretax profit in China was up. The weak Japanese yen is creating price pressure in many of those markets.

GM South America made a pretax profit of $54 million, up from only $16 million in this quarter last year.

GM Financial’s profits were up 17% to $254 million.

During the quarter, the price for GM shares went up 20%, surpassing the $33 IPO price for the first time in over two years. The share price got a boost from news that the U.S. Treasury was selling off more of its equity in the automaker, the result of the 2009 bailout, and from GM’s relisting on the Standard & Poor 500 in June. At Wednesday’s close, GM common stock was $37.14.