By David Bailey
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co's
Sales of GM's four core U.S. brands rose 21 percent in November from a year earlier amid higher prices and reduced incentives, GM said in its first sales results since it completed the largest-ever IPO in November.
GM said growing pent-up demand for cars will be released as the economy continues to improve.
"We see people showing an increasing willingness to go out into dealerships and into malls," said Jim Bunnell, general manager of GM's U.S. sales operations. "It's not going to happen overnight, but we think through 2011 we're going to see a continued gradual improvement."
Analysts overall expect automakers to report light vehicle sales at an annualized rate slightly above 12 million units, driven by discounting aimed to counter a slow return in consumer demand.
GM said it expected the seasonally adjusted annualized rate of sales to be about 12.2 million vehicles in November, in line with the 12.2 million rate in October.
Analysts said an annualized rate about equal to October would be encouraging for the traditionally slow sales month.
The automaker expects U.S. auto industry sales to be up about 15 percent overall in November from a year earlier.
GM said its core Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac brands were on track to gain market share for the year. Sales of GM's Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave sister crossovers rose a combined 38 percent from a year earlier.
The new Chevy Cruze helped punch car sales up 17 percent in November from a year earlier, GM said.
GM said its average transaction prices were up $1,300 in November from a year earlier, while incentives were down. Industrywide incentives were up slightly in November from a year earlier.
GM's shares were up 1.6 percent at $34.76 on the New York Stock Exchange around midday.
TOYOTA SEEN LAGGING
Auto sales for November are one of the first snapshots of consumer behavior at the holiday shopping season. However, automakers typically run year-end discount programs from before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday through year end.
Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> and Ford Motor Co
The final weekend of November sales was lifted by Thanksgiving holiday deals sponsored by individual dealers and manufacturers, including Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T> and Nissan Motor Co <7201.T>, analysts said.
Analysts expect Toyota to report a 2 percent sales drop in November despite increased spending on incentives, making it the only major automaker with a decline and illustrating the difficulties Toyota still faces in winning back U.S. consumers a year after starting recalls that rocked its reputation for quality and safety.
Toyota said on Monday it would fix about 378,000 Prius models in the United States because of a risk that a coolant pump could malfunction and cause the car to overheat and lose power.
Since last November, Toyota has recalled about 14 million vehicles worldwide, including 11 million in the United States.
After a disastrous 2009 that saw GM and Chrysler collapse into government-funded bankruptcies, the industry is expected to see 2010 sales of about 11.5 million vehicles. That would represent a gain of about 10 percent.
Most industry estimates for 2011 put sales between 12 million and 13 million vehicles. Before the financial crisis, automakers routinely sold more than 16 million vehicles per year in the U.S. market.
(Reporting by David Bailey, Kevin Krolicki and Deepa Seetharaman, editing by Matthew Lewis)