GM Gains Sales and Share in Europe in 2005

· Sales over 22,000 units ahead of 2004

· Cadillac, Corvette, Saab and Chevrolet set all-time European sales records

· Opel and Vauxhall grow share in home markets

Zurich. General Motors (GM) outstripped sluggish growth of less than one percent in the European vehicle market to sell over 1,982,300 cars and light commercial vehicles in 2005, an increase of more than 22,000 or 1.1 percent over 2004. GM’s share of the market (Western, Central and Eastern Europe) rose slightly to 9. 5 percent.*

“2005 was a pivotal year for us”, said Carl-Peter Forster who became a GM Group vice president and President of GM Europe, the company’s senior ranking executive in Europe, on January 1. “We laid the foundation for sustainable growth with a healthy balance of structural improvements and investment in great new product launches. We’ll be working hard to keep up the momentum in 2006.”

GM’s brands significantly outpaced industry growth in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal and Denmark as well as in the rapidly expanding markets of Russia and Ukraine.

Both Saab and Chevrolet registered their highest ever sales volume in Europe last year. Saab grew in line with the market, maintaining its 0.4 percent share while increasing sales to 82,100 units. The Swedish marque performed exceptionally well in the United Kingdom where its sales increased by 35 percent.

Chevrolet’s year-on-year growth topped 26 percent, taking GM’s biggest global brand to a European sales total of over 240,000 and a market share of 1.2 percent after 0.9 percent in 2004. (These figures do not include over 40,000 Chevrolet Niva SUVs built and sold exclusively in the Russian market.) Chevrolet is well positioned for further growth in 2006 with three new model launches and the up-coming addition of diesel engines to the growing line-up.

Accounting for 80 percent of GM’s European sales, Opel/Vauxhall sold 1.6 million vehicles in 2005. Market share grew in nine of 21 European markets. Significantly, Opel and Vauxhall were able to grow share in their respective home markets. Opel’s share of the German market climbed from 9.9 to more than 10 percent, taking Opel back to second position in its home country. Vauxhall reached 13.1 percent of the UK market after 12.6 percent a year earlier. The brands’ most important volume model, the compact Astra, was sold 527,000 times in 2005, achieving a 2.5 percent share of the European market in its own right. Astra is now in second place in the European sales statistics after halving the gap on the leader to 0.3 points of market share in the course of 2005. In 2006, Opel and Vauxhall will launch the next-generation Corsa and, with the all-new Antara, add a crossover vehicle to its line-up.

General Motors’ luxury brands, Cadillac and Corvette, also registered significant growth in 2005, achieving their best ever sales in Europe. With well over one thousand registrations, the sixth-generation Corvette more than tripled 2004 sales levels. Cadillac increased its 2004 sales volume by over 50 percent, selling well over 2,000 units. The European-built Cadillac BLS is scheduled to go on sale this spring.

It's a good thing to see GM doing well abroad.. Just wish if more of what GM sells there was built in American (Solstice, HHR)