For many people, everything that happened during 2020 made it the worst year of their lives. Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic has done a number of terrible things to the world, and for many companies, COVID-19 has caused complete financial collapse. This wasn’t the case for General Motors, which actually had a pretty good year financially speaking.

Genal Motors is the leader in full-size trucks

It’s no surprise that trucks are some of the best-selling cars on the market in the U.S., but the leaderboards usually had the Ford F-series of trucks in first place.

However, for many reasons, General Motors as a company has managed to overtake Ford in the full-size pickup segment, largely because GM has two full-size trucks on the market, the Chevy Silverado and the GMC Sierra. 

That being said, as GM wrote, there’s a bit more to it than that. Despite the pandemic sinking the sales figures for many other makes and models, many GM models actually sold better than 2019, and the Silverado and the Sierra were no exception.

The Sierra continued to sell very well in the fourth quarter of 2020, as it sold 14% more than it did in the prior year, and the Silverado was similar as it sold about 15% better. 

Combined, GM sold almost 840,000 full-size pickup trucks in 2020, and that made GM the leader in full-size trucks. GM’s midsize truck segment also had a good fourth quarter though, as the Chevy Colorado sold about 21% better while the GMC Canyon sold about 42% better.

A leader in SUV sales, too

Trucks aren’t the only booming segment in the U.S., and SUVs have been selling very well too, and that was also the case for General Motors in 2020. Not only that though, but GM dominated full-size SUV sales in the fourth quarter, since, according to GM, about 70% of every full-size SUV sold in the fourth quarter was a GM SUV.

Across the board, GM’s SUVs sold very well compared to 2019, with the GMC Yukon selling about 41% better in the fourth quarter than in 2019, and the Chevy Tahoe selling about 76% better than it did in 2019.

Additionally, GM said that the Cadillac Escalade is now the leader in its segment since 43% of all Escalade purchases in the fourth quarter of 2020 were priced at over $100,000. 

While many GM models sold better than 2019, overall, GM did see an overall drop in sales when every car is accounted for. GM said that it delivered about 12% fewer cars than it did in 2019, which is understandable given the economy.

General Motors foresees a better 2021

General Motors thinks that 2021 will be even better as the economy and the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. After such a strong 2020, the company is right to feel optimistic.

GM said that many of those sales, especially in the fourth quarter of 2020, were due to “strong pent-up demand for all-new models,” and that type of feeling may continue in 2021 as well.

In addition to that, like GM said, part of the reason why 2020 was so good for GM was because of fortunate timing. GM recently opened a new plant in Texas in April 2020, and that plant was designed to build the full-size vehicles that GM is selling so much of. 

Furthermore, 2020 set a few records for GM. Overall, the average transaction price in 2020 for GM was about $39,000, and this was a record for GM. If customers continue spending so much on vehicles, then the company will definitely have an even better 2021.