General Motors Q3 revenue and profit both exceeded expectations, raising full-year guidance, with the stock price surging more than 8% at one point | Financial Report Insights

General Motors has exceeded earnings expectations for nine consecutive quarters, and revenue expectations for eight consecutive quarters.

Around 18:30 on October 22nd Beijing time, General Motors (GM) announced its third-quarter 2024 financial data and updated its full-year guidance.

1) Key Financial Data:

Revenue: Q3 operating income increased by 10.5% year-on-year to $48.76 billion, exceeding the expected $44.59 billion.

Profit: Q3 net profit attributable to shareholders slightly increased to $3.1 billion, with adjusted EBIT of $4.1 billion.

Earnings Per Share: Q3 adjusted earnings per share were $2.96, higher than the expected $2.43.

2) Performance Guidance:

EBIT: It is expected that the full-year adjusted EBIT for 2024 will be between $14 billion and $15 billion, or $10 to $10.5 per share, higher than the expected $13 billion to $15 billion, or $9.5 to $10.5 per share.

Net Profit: The expected net profit attributable to shareholders for 2024 has been narrowed to $10.4 billion to $11.1 billion, or $9.14 to $9.64 per share, compared to the previous guidance of $10 billion to $11.4 billion, or $8.93 to $9.93 per share.

Free Cash Flow: The adjusted free cash flow for 2024 has been raised from $9.5 billion to $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion to $13.5 billion.

In early trading on Tuesday, GM's stock rose more than 8.8%, hitting a 52-week high. As of Monday's close, GM's stock has risen 36% this year to $48.93. Part of the reason for the stock price increase is that GM has spent a lot of money repurchasing its own shares, leading to a 19% decrease in the number of shares on the market compared to the previous year.

This is the third time GM has raised its performance expectations this year, with the North American market performing particularly well. The EBIT contribution from the North American market in Q3 was close to $4 billion, a 12.9% year-on-year increase. The company has exceeded Wall Street's expectations for revenue and net profit. However, GM's CFO Paul Jacobson warned that profit in the fourth quarter will decline due to issues such as truck production scheduling, seasonal factors, reduced wholesale volume, and vehicle mix.

Furthermore, CFO Jacobson mentioned that the strong performance in Q3 was due to their vehicles selling at high prices. From July to September, the average selling price per vehicle at GM remained above $49,000, a number closely watched by Wall Street to gauge potential sales issues. Consumer support has been unexpectedly strong Compared to the past few quarters, our situation has not changed at all.

He mentioned that another reason is that the company moved some trucks originally planned for production in the fourth quarter to the third quarter, which resulted in an adjusted revenue increase of $400 million.

This quarterly report was released two weeks after General Motors Investor Day, where the company projected continued profitability into next year and will share the full-year performance forecast for 2025 in January next year