GM doubles chip shortage impact to 200,000 vehicles in second half of year, maintains guidance
General Motors Co. Chevrolet Traverse sports utility vehicles (SUV) sit on the assembly line at the company’s Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant in Lansing, Michigan, on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020.
Jeff Kowalsky | Bloomberg | Getty Images
General Motors’ vehicle sales and production will be hit harder by the global chip shortage during the second half of the year than previously expected.
The shortage will cut GM’s wholesale deliveries by about 200,000 vehicles in North America during the second half of the year compared to the 1.1 million it delivered in the first half of the year, GM CFO Paul Jacobson said Friday during an RBC Capital Markets conference. That reduction is double the 100,000 units that was expected when GM reported second quarter earnings in August.
Despite the increase, Jacobson said the company is maintaining its most recent guidance for 2021.
“We’re still going to deliver a year that’s higher than what we originally thought coming into January,” Jacobson said.
The automaker last month raised its adjusted full-year guidance to between $11.5 billion and $13.5 billion, or $5.40 to $6.40 a share, up from $10 billion to $11 billion, or $4.50 to $5.25 a share.
The increase follows GM announcing or extending downtime last week for nearly every one of its plants in North America for varying periods of time.
