GM profit drops 39% in Q4 as chip shortage slowed production

DETROIT — General Motors' net income plunged 39 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.7 billion as the global microchip shortage continued to hamper production, but the automaker said it achieved a record full-year operating profit and expects to roughly match that performance in 2022.

For all of 2021, GM's net income surged 56 percent to $10 billion. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes rose 47 percent to $14.3 billion, hitting the range it previously projected, as revenue increased 3.7 percent to $127 billion.

The automaker said it expects its 2022 adjusted earnings "to remain at or near record levels," between $13 billion and $15 billion.

GM's fourth-quarter profit in North America decreased 17 percent to $2.2 billion. For the year, North America profit rose 14 percent to $10.3 billion.

Shares of GM were up 1 percent to $54.60 in after-hours trading.

The company's U.S. light-vehicle sales fell 43 percent in the fourth quarter to a new post-bankruptcy low as the chip shortage forced the automaker to add production downtime at some plants. On the year, GM's sales were down 13 percent to 2.20 million, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center, falling behind Toyota Motor North America for the first time.

At the end of the fourth quarter, GM inventory, including vehicles in transit to dealerships, stood at 199,662, up from 128,757 three months earlier, GM said. That's still fewer than half as many as it had at the end of 2020 and one-third of its stock at the end of 2019.

"GM's sales and market share in the final quarter of 2021 strongly reflected the company's deep struggle in the face of the ongoing disruption to supply chains created by the chip shortage, and conceding its sales crown to another automaker for the first time in decades likely rubbed salt in the wound," Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds' executive director of insights, said in a statement. "GM brands had a harder time keeping customers in the fold with less vehicles and options available."

Although sales were down, vehicles sold for much higher prices. In the fourth quarter, GM's average transaction price was $50,149, up 15 percent, while incentives fell 65 percent to $1,813 per vehicle, according to TrueCar.

The UAW said its GM members will receive up to $10,250 in profit sharing based on the automaker’s full-year results.

“We continue to talk to our local unions and General Motors about some of the unforeseen challenges UAW members faced this year,” UAW Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement.