GM - General Motors Company

01/30/2024 | Press release | Archived content

Chair and CEO Mary Barra's letter to shareholders - Q4 2023

Q4 2023 Letter to Shareholders

2024-01-30


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To Our Shareholders,

Today, GM reported full-year net income attributable to stockholders of $10.1 billion and EBIT-adjusted of $12.4 billion with very strong free cash flow, which is allowing us to return significant capital to shareholders after reinvesting in the business. In fact, almost two-thirds of the $22 billion in adjusted automotive free cash flow that we generated in 2022 and 2023 is being returned to shareholders.

As we begin 2024, I believe GM is well positioned for a year of strong financial performance that will build on everything we accomplished - and learned - in 2023.

Consensus is growing that the U.S. economy, the job market and auto sales will continue to be resilient, and at GM, we expect healthy industry sales of about 16 million units with the mix of EVs continuing to grow.

Our foundation is building vehicles that our customers love:

  • Our total company revenue grew 10% year over year.
  • In the U.S. in 2023, GM sold more vehicles than anyone else, all our brands grew their sales year over year, and we gained market share with strong margins thanks to stable pricing and incentives that were more than 20% below the industry average.
  • We also led the industry in initial quality for the second year in a row, according to J.D. Power.
  • We have now led the industry in combined pickup, full-size van and full-size SUV sales for 10 consecutive years, making us the leader in the highest ATP quadrant of the market.
  • We have passed Honda and Toyota in the most affordable quadrant thanks to attractive and profitable vehicles like the Chevrolet Trax, which is one of Car and Driver's 10Best Trucks and SUVs, and the Buick Envista, which is winning with younger buyers.

As we look ahead, our priorities and commitments are clear. They are to maximize the opportunities we have with our winning ICE portfolio with new models like the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse and 2025 Chevrolet Equinox; grow our EV business profitably; deliver strong margins and cash flow; and refocus and relaunch Cruise.

In our EV business, we expect our U.S. portfolio will become variable profit positive in the second half of the year based on our current expectations for EV demand and production growth, strong interest in our vehicles, lower commodity prices and other factors.

It's true the pace of EV growth has slowed, which has created some uncertainty. But many third-party forecasts have U.S. EV deliveries rising from about 7% of the industry in 2023 to at least 10% in 2024, which would mean another year of record EV sales.

We believe our competitive position will improve throughout the year, based on higher production of the Cadillac LYRIQ, GMC HUMMER EV, Chevrolet Blazer EV and Silverado EV Work Truck. We're also excited to have the Chevrolet Equinox EV and Silverado EV RST, the GMC Sierra EV Denali and the Cadillac Escalade IQ arriving in showrooms over the course of the year.

At Cruise, we are committed to earning back the trust of regulators and the public through our commitments and our actions. Last week we released the results of the third-party reviews and we've already begun to implement significant changes because of these reviews.

To summarize, we learned a lot in 2023, and those learnings are helping us build on our strengths, address our challenges, and create an even stronger GM with a growing and profitable EV business.

Everyone on the team is focused on strong execution to sustain our momentum and create shareholder value, and we are deeply committed and accountable to do exactly that.

Thank you, as always, for your continued confidence in GM.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements: This press release and related comments by management, may include "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Future declarations of quarterly dividends and the establishment of future record and payment dates are at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be based on a number of factors, including our future financial performance and other investment priorities. Forward-looking statements are any statements other than statements of historical fact. Forward-looking statements represent our current judgment about possible future events and are often identified by words like "aim," "anticipate," "appears," "approximately," "believe," "continue," "could," "designed," "effect," "estimate," "evaluate," "expect," "forecast," "goal," "initiative," "intend," "may," "objective," "outlook," "plan," "potential," "priorities," "project," "pursue," "seek," "should," "target," "when," "will," "would," or the negative of any of those words or similar expressions. In making these statements, we rely on assumptions and analysis based on our experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments as well as other factors we consider appropriate under the circumstances. We believe these judgments are reasonable, but these statements are not guarantees of any future events or financial results, and our actual results may differ materially due to a variety of important factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors, which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports we file with the SEC, include, among others, the following: (1) our ability to deliver new products, services, technologies and customer experiences; (2) our ability to timely fund and introduce new and improved vehicle models; (3) our ability to profitably deliver a broad portfolio of electric vehicles (EVs); (4) the success of our current line of internal combustion engine vehicles; (5) our highly competitive industry; (6) the unique technological, operational, regulatory and competitive risks related to the timing and commercialization of autonomous vehicles (AVs), including the various regulatory approvals and permits required for operating driverless AVs in multiple markets; (7) risks associated with climate change; (8) global automobile market sales volume; (9) inflationary pressures, persistently high prices, uncertain availability of raw materials and commodities, and instability in logistics and related costs; (10) our business in China, which is subject to unique operational, competitive, regulatory and economic risks; (11) the success of our ongoing strategic business relationships and of our joint ventures; (12) the international scale and footprint of our operations, which exposes us to a variety of unique political, economic, competitive and regulatory risks; (13) any significant disruption at any of our manufacturing facilities; (14) the ability of our suppliers to deliver parts, systems and components without disruption and at such times to allow us to meet production schedules; (15) pandemics, epidemics, disease outbreaks and other public health crises; (16) the possibility that competitors may independently develop products and services similar to ours, or that our intellectual property rights are not sufficient to prevent competitors from developing or selling those products or services; (17) our ability to manage risks related to security breaches and other disruptions to our information technology systems and networked products; (18) our ability to comply with increasingly complex, restrictive and punitive regulations relating to our enterprise data practices; (19) our ability to comply with extensive laws, regulations and policies applicable to our operations and products, including those relating to fuel economy, emissions and AVs; (20) costs and risks associated with litigation and government investigations; (21) the costs and effect on our reputation of product safety recalls and alleged defects in products and services; (22) any additional tax expense or exposure or failure to fully realize available tax incentives; (23) our continued ability to develop captive financing capability through General Motors Financial Company, Inc.; and (24) any significant increase in our pension funding requirements. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and our subsequent filings with the SEC. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or other factors, except where we are expressly required to do so by law.