General Motors had a great month in June.
July 1, 2011- General Motors posted an overall increase in sales of 10% even though Cadillac suffered during the month. For the first six months of 2011 sales are up almost 17%. That increase is even more impressive if you take into consideration that GM’s sales last year also included Saab, Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer.
Nevertheless the gain was less than what made forecasters had anticipated from the U.S. automaker. One reason could be they cut back on the number of discount sales they made to rental-car fleets. The reason is small cars that usually are provided to fleets are now popular with individual buyer who are looking for low prices and high mileage.
The company’s truck brand, GMC had the highest gain up just less than 15% at 14.9% from June of last year. The star of the whole group is Buick, for the first six months they are up over 33% from last year. But the main brand for GM is still Chevrolet with over 72% of the total sales for the group. Chevrolet increased 10.9% in June and Cadillac was down a dismal 7.9%.
The Chevy Cruze was the star car for the group. The compact sedan replaced the Cobalt and over 25,000 buyers purchased one last month. The Cruze sales are 59% higher in the first six months this year than the first six months last year for Cobalt.
The Chevy Equinox SUV was up 56% as modest-sized models were sought by buyers for better fuel mileage to cope with the always high fuel prices.
