GM May Sales Dip, Inventory Swells

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) on Thursday posted total May U.S. sales of 237,364 vehicles, a decrease of 1.3% compared with May 2016. Retail deliveries rose 0.4 points in the month to 191,388 million units, and fleet deliveries dipped one percentage point for the calendar year to account for 20.6% of total monthly sales.

GM’s new vehicle sales for May were forecast at 248,000 by analysts at Kelley Blue Book (KBB). The analysts also estimated an average transaction price of $37,804, down 0.3% month over month and down 1.8% year over year. KBB does not include applied consumer incentives to its calculation.

The company said March’s average transaction price was $35,283, up more than $640 per vehicle compared to April’s average. The company also said that May incentive spending as a percentage of average transaction price (ATP) was down 0.8% month over month.

May sales of the company’s top-selling Silverado pickup fell by 2.7% year over year to 43,804 units and GMC Sierra sales tumbled 8.2% to 16,200 units.

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Sales of the Colorado midsize pickup dropped 1.1% to 9,091 units, and the comparable GMC Canyon saw a decline of 26.3% to 2,477 units.

Cadillac retail sales increased 9.2% in May, following a 9.5% increase in April. Cadillac sales totaled 13,211 units in May.

Total Chevrolet deliveries in May decreased by 3.8% year over year to 162,950 units, with retail sales rising by 0.3% to 126,451 units.

The company’s Buick brand saw a year-over-year sales jump of 28.5% in May, including an increase of 11.5% in retail sales. The driver here was the Buick LaCrosse with an 88.1% year-over-year gain.

For the auto industry as a whole, GM’s forecast for the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales is 16.6 million for May, down 0.4 points from last month’s estimate.

GM reported 963,448 units in inventory at the end of May, up by 27,690 from the total at the end of April. That represents a 101-day supply, up from 100 at the end of April.

GM’s stock traded up about 2.3% Thursday morning to $34.72, in a 52-week range of $27.34 to $38.55. The 12-month consensus price target on the stock is $40.25, according to MarketWatch.

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