Whoa, whoa, whoa. Talk about a biased article! Let’s take a look at how a few facts were packaged together to make wrong assumptions:
For the first 7 months of 2012, their market share was 18.0%, down from 20.0% for the same period in 2011.
Sounds bad, doesn’t it? Nowhere do they mention that GM market share was artificially high in 2011 due to the Japanese earthquake! That’s right, Japanese car sales were way off (Toyota down 22%, Honda down 28%) due to lack of supply. That would inflate the market share of the other brands, wouldn’t it? For shame, Forbes. Present things in a fair manner please.
Because the D-Segment is the highest volume single vehicle class in the U.S., and the U.S. is GM’s home market, it is difficult to imagine how GM could survive long term unless it can profitably develop, manufacture, and market a vehicle that can hold its own in the D-Segment.
Uh, wait. You mean a car company can’t survive unless it competes in every category? Someone needs to explain that to Porsche.
This article breezes on by the fact that every car company has strengths and weaknesses. GM is known for trucks mostly and that’s where it generates it’s sales. It is about to introduce new full size trucks, actually, so let’s watch their market share AFTER that happens.
Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.
It would be more fair to compare it to it’s competitors since Nov 2010,, wouldn’t it? Let’s take a look.
Honda 11/2010: $38/share
Honda today: $33/share
Ford 11/2010: $16/share
Ford today: $9/share
Toyota 11/2010: $77/share
Toyota today: $82/share
Not quite the same picture the Forbes article painted now, is it?
Finally, this article focuses on nothing but the Malibu – it bases almost all conclusions on that! It’s a poor article based on limited information taken out of context, with limited discussion on a single model!
Yeah, the Malibu is gonna have a lot of competition. What else is new?
