Wednesday, July 16, 2008

GM’s silver lining in LatAm

Auto giant General Motors (GM) has fallen on hard times; yesterday it was announced that they will be suspending its dividend for the first time in over eighty years, withhold bonuses, and will lay off white collar workers. The overall goal is to save $15 billion by the end of the year as plummeting auto sales domestically have led to heavy losses for the largest U.S. automaker.

Despite the grim picture at GM there has been a bit of good news; sales in foreign markets such as Latin America grew:

GM reported that second-quarter sales generated by its Latin America, Africa and Middle East division surged 18% and that its market share in the regions rose almost a full percentage point, to 17.5%.

Total division sales for the latest quarter reached 346,100 units, up from 294,000 a year ago, with sales in Egypt doubling in that time. Brazil, Chile and the North Africa markets also hit all-time quarterly sales records.

It may not be enough to pull GM out of its deep financial crisis, but at least there’s some silver lining that can be taken advantage of.

Image- RTE

Sources- AFP, Bloomberg, AFP, MarketWatch


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