July Sales Slip Nearly 2% at GM

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) posted total July U.S. sales of 267,258 vehicles, a decrease of 1.9% compared with July 2015. Retail deliveries rose 5%, fleet deliveries slipped 4.7 points and commercial sales rose 1% in July.

GM’s new vehicle sales for July were forecast at about 277,600 by analysts at Edmunds.com. Kelley Blue Book (KBB) had estimated sales of 262,000 at an average transaction price of $39,104, up 1.8% month over month and up 3.3% year over year. GM reported that its average July transaction prices slipped to $34,887 from June’s average of $35,423. KBB does not include applied consumer incentives to its calculation. GM reported that July incentive spending equaled 14.2% of its average transaction price, more than $4,100 above the industry average and more than $1,100 above incentive spending in July 2015.

After poor June sales, GM kicked of a “Chevy Summer Sell Down” promotion in July that saw incentives of as much as $10,000 on a Silverado pickup. It did not help with Silverado sales, which were down 4% year over year to 54,116 units, but GMC Sierra sales, which had fallen 7.8% in June, improved by 13.2% in July even though the incentives on the Sierra did not approach the Silverado offers.

Sales of the GMC Sierra pickups rose in July to 22,428 units, while the Colorado midsize pickup posted a sales increase of 27.5% to 9,195 units.

Cadillac retail sales rose 1.4% in July, following a 4.6% increase in June. Cadillac sales totaled 14,341 units in July.

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Total Chevrolet deliveries in July fell 5.3% year over year to 178,820 units and retail sales rose 3% to 154,305 units.

The company’s Buick brand saw a year-over-year total sales increase of 10.4% in June and an increase of 12.7% in retail sales.

For the auto industry as a whole, GM’s forecast for the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales is 17.9 million for July, up from its June estimate of 17.0 million.

For the year to date, GM’s total sales are down 4% and retail sales are up 1.9%.

GM’s stock traded down about 4% Tuesday morning, at $30.03 in a 52-week range of $24.62 to $36.88.

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