Q4 2024 Letter to Shareholders
Jan. 28, 2025
To Our Shareholders,
I would like to open this letter by thanking the entire GM team, including our dealers and suppliers, for helping deliver an outstanding 2024.
A year ago, I said that we were optimistic about 2024 given the choice we would offer customers, including industry-leading full-size pickups, new and redesigned SUVs and an expanding portfolio of EVs.
I also said that we would focus on execution and profitability, and our performance has been consistently strong:
• We grew full-year revenue 9%, once again we led the U.S. market in total, retail, and fleet deliveries, we grew our market share, and we distanced ourselves from the industry’s pricing, incentive, and inventory pressures.
• We doubled our EV market share over the course of the year as we scaled production, and our portfolio became variable profit positive in the fourth quarter.
• In China, we reported positive equity income for the fourth quarter before restructuring costs, and we’re taking steps with our partner to improve from there.
This combination of compelling vehicles in high volume and growing segments, strong execution, and discipline led directly to record EBIT-adjusted, record adjusted automotive free cash flow, and record EPS-diluted-adjusted.
Our employees and owners are all sharing in our success. I’m pleased to share that our global salaried team has earned strong performance bonuses, and our U.S. hourly employees once again earned the industry’s highest profit sharing, totaling more than $640 million. That’s a record payout of up to $14,500 per person, equal to more than two months of extra pay on average for our UAW-represented team. Investors in GM also earned a 50% total return and we ended the year with fewer than 1 billion shares outstanding, a goal we reached ahead of plan.
As we look to the year ahead, we will continue to allocate capital consistently and in a balanced manner, and our vehicle portfolio will continue to get stronger. For example, we will offer three stunning new Cadillac EVs – the ESCALADE IQ, OPTIQ and VISTIQ – and we’re targeting further improvements in EV profitability as we continue to scale.
In addition, we will see the full-year impact of the new gas-powered SUVs we launched in 2024. They include some of our highest volume nameplates like the Chevrolet Equinox, Chevrolet Traverse, and GMC Acadia, which are great examples of our strategy to pair bold design and capital efficiency to drive profitability. I look forward to sharing our progress because there’s so much opportunity ahead of us.
Of course, there is uncertainty over trade, tax, and environmental regulations and we have been proactive with Congress and the administration. In our conversations, we have stressed the importance of a strong manufacturing sector and American leadership in advanced technologies. It’s clear that we share a lot of common ground, and we appreciate the dialogue.
Whatever happens on these fronts, we have a broad and deep portfolio of ICE vehicles and EVs that are both growing market share, and we’ll be agile and execute as efficiently as possible.
Thank you for your continued confidence in the General Motors team.
Mary T. Barra
Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements: This press release and related comments by management, may include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. Future declarations of quarterly dividends and the establishment of future record and payment dates are at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will be based on a number of factors, including our future financial performance and other investment priorities. Forward-looking statements are any statements other than statements of historical fact. Forward-looking statements represent our current judgment about possible future events and are often identified by words like “aim,” “anticipate,” “appears,” “approximately,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “designed,” “effect,” “estimate,” “evaluate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “goal,” “initiative,” “intend,” “may,” “objective,” “outlook,” “plan,” “potential,” “priorities,” “project,” “pursue,” “seek,” “should,” “target,” “when,” “will,” “would,” or the negative of any of those words or similar expressions. In making these statements, we rely on assumptions and analysis based on our experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments as well as other factors we consider appropriate under the circumstances. We believe these judgments are reasonable, but these statements are not guarantees of any future events or financial results, and our actual results may differ materially due to a variety of important factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors, which may be revised or supplemented in subsequent reports we file with the SEC, include, among others, the following: (1) our ability to deliver new products, services, technologies and customer experiences; (2) our ability to timely fund and introduce new and improved vehicle models; (3) our ability to profitably deliver a broad portfolio of electric vehicles (EVs); (4) the success of our current line of internal combustion engine vehicles; (5) our highly competitive industry; (6) the unique technological, operational, regulatory and competitive risks related to the timing and commercialization of autonomous vehicles (AVs), including the various regulatory approvals and permits required for operating driverless AVs in multiple markets; (7) risks associated with climate change; (8) global automobile market sales volume; (9) inflationary pressures, persistently high prices, uncertain availability of raw materials and commodities, and instability in logistics and related costs; (10) our business in China, which is subject to unique operational, competitive, regulatory and economic risks; (11) the success of our ongoing strategic business relationships and of our joint ventures; (12) the international scale and footprint of our operations, which exposes us to a variety of unique political, economic, competitive and regulatory risks; (13) any significant disruption at any of our manufacturing facilities; (14) the ability of our suppliers to deliver parts, systems and components without disruption and at such times to allow us to meet production schedules; (15) pandemics, epidemics, disease outbreaks and other public health crises; (16) the possibility that competitors may independently develop products and services similar to ours, or that our intellectual property rights are not sufficient to prevent competitors from developing or selling those products or services; (17) our ability to manage risks related to security breaches and other disruptions to our information technology systems and networked products; (18) our ability to comply with increasingly complex, restrictive and punitive regulations relating to our enterprise data practices; (19) our ability to comply with extensive laws, regulations and policies applicable to our operations and products, including those relating to fuel economy, emissions and AVs; (20) costs and risks associated with litigation and government investigations; (21) the costs and effect on our reputation of product safety recalls and alleged defects in products and services; (22) any additional tax expense or exposure or failure to fully realize available tax incentives; (23) our continued ability to develop captive financing capability through General Motors Financial Company, Inc.; and (24) any significant increase in our pension funding requirements. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be found in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and our subsequent filings with the SEC. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or other factors, except where we are expressly required to do so by law.