GM CEO Mary Barra details the ‘tremendous opportunity’ in China

Despite hiccups with supply shortages and COVID-related shutdowns, General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra is bullish on the China marketplace.

“We still think there’s tremendous opportunity there,” Barra said at Yahoo Finance's All Markets Summit in an interview with Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer.

GM reported a bounceback in China sales for Q3 of this year, where it sold 629,900 vehicles, up about 1% from a year ago. While that doesn’t sound like much, sales dropped a whopping 35% in Q2 due to those COVID shutdowns and related parts services.

Barra says it was a combination of traditional GM brands and their China joint-venture products that are driving growth. GM’s joint venture SAIC-GM builds and sells products under the Chevrolet, Buick, and Cadillac brands in China.

YANTAI, CHINA - SEPTEMBER 14: Employees work on the assembly line of Buick Envision SUV at a workshop of GM China Dong Yue Motors Assembly Plant on September 14, 2022 in Yantai, Shandong Province of China. (Photo by Tang Ke/VCG via Getty Images) (VCG via Getty Images)

“The Buick brand is very strong as is Cadillac, and we also have Chevrolet there, but we also have a joint venture with Wuling, that allows us to sell the Baojun brand,” she says. The SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture, GM’s other main partnership, sells the Wuling and Baojun brands in mainland China.

Buick has been a stalwart for GM in China, with sales climbing 11.4% in Q3 versus a year ago. Chevrolet was up 14.3%, and Wuling climbed a modest 4%. Though Cadillac was down 5% in China compared to a year ago, GM is bullish on its growth prospects, with the LYRIQ EV SUV going on sale there in September.

And EVs are a potential mainstay for growth in China for GM, where the EV market is the most developed in the world. “The [Wuling] Hongguang Mini EV has been one of the highest selling vehicles this year, from a Chinese perspective for EVs,” Barra says about the diminutive box-like car.

QINGDAO, CHINA - MARCH 30: A Wuling Hongguang Mini EV Macaron microcar rolls off the assembly line at a branch of SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile on March 30, 2022 in Qingdao, Shandong Province of China. (Photo by Yu Fangping/VCG via Getty Images) (VCG via Getty Images)

Barra is more bullish on the high-end, where she sees relative strength versus the competition. “We’re definitely seeing the landscape change, we’re seeing more competition from domestic suppliers, but we think especially in luxury and with Buick, the strength of those brands, we think, is going to remain strong.”

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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.

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