G.M., the nation’s largest automaker, said global revenue dropped 2 percent during the quarter to $36.9 billion, despite a concerted effort to introduce new models in the United States and Europe.
The automaker’s core North American operations achieved a pretax profit of $1.4 billion, a 14 percent decline from the year-ago period.
But the company beat analysts’ earnings expectations and said it had narrowed losses in Europe during the quarter. G.M. shares rose 3 percent to close at $31.16 on Thursday.
G.M. has struggled to rebuild its business since the recession, when it needed a $49.5 billion government bailout and bankruptcy to survive. The automaker has since cut brands, models and thousands of jobs to bring costs more in line with production and sales.
The company’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, said the decline in earnings and revenue did not reflect the progress G.M. was making with new models in the marketplace.
“The year is off to a strong start as we increased our global share with strong new products that are attracting customers around the world,” Mr. Akerson said in a statement.
G.M. lost market share in the United States last year to competitors like Chrysler and Toyota. Mr. Akerson has vowed to reverse that trend this year with vehicles like the new Cadillac ATS sedan and restyled versions of its big pickup trucks.
Comparisons between G.M. and Ford offer a stark contrast in how the two biggest Detroit automakers are managing their global business. Ford, the smaller of the two, has surpassed G.M. in growth and profitability at home, while the situation is reversed in Europe.
In the first quarter, Ford earned an average of $3,200 in pretax profit on each of the 761,000 vehicles it sold in North America, while G.M. earned about $1,700 on the 829,000 cars and trucks it sold in the region.
But in Europe, Ford’s loss widened in the first quarter to $462 million. G.M. reduced its European losses by 40 percent to $175 million.
The hottest competition between the companies is in the expanding pickup market in the United States.
Ford said on Thursday that it would add 2,000 jobs this year at its truck plant in Kansas City, Mo., and add a third shift of workers to build its industry-leading F-series pickup.
G.M. is transitioning to new versions of its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. But G.M. executives said on Thursday that there were no plans to increase truck production because a pickup plant in Texas was already operating at less than capacity.
Mr. Akerson said G.M. had improved its accounting and regional framework to focus on more profitable vehicles and markets. The company is building more plants in China and is making a big push to increase sales of its Cadillac luxury brand.
“We’re a very healthy company that’s getting stronger each quarter,” he said in a call with analysts Thursday.
In Asia, the company said pretax profits were about $495 million, slightly less than a year ago. South American operations had a pretax loss of $38 million, in contrast to a profit of $153 million last year.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/business/gms-quarterly-profit-falls-14.html?partner=rss&emc=rss