General Motors delivered more than 2.3 million vehicles in China last year, a 21-percent decline from a year earlier.
Even with the sharp decline, China remained GM’s biggest market worldwide, with the U.S., where 2022 deliveries rose 2.5 percent to 2.258 million, in second place.
The company blamed the weaker China results on lingering semiconductor chip shortages as well as strict anti-pandemic measures Beijing upheld until December.
From April to May, Shanghai, home to GM’s largest production site in China, was locked down to curb a severe coronavirus outbreak, dealing a blow to output.
SAIC-GM, GM’s passenger-vehicle joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp., assembles and markets Cadillac, Chevrolet and Buick cars and light trucks.
Buick, GM’s main volume brand in China, saw deliveries slide 21 percent to about 644,000 in 2022.
Cadillac deliveries declined 15 percent to roughly 198,000 while Chevrolet sales rose 13 percent to some 200,000 on volume generated by two redesigned crossovers – the Seeker and Tracker RS.
At SAIC-GM-Wuling, a three-way partnership between SAIC, GM and Liuzhou Wuling Motors, 2022 deliveries fell 14 percent to roughly 1.2 million.
The venture mainly builds minibuses, compact pickups and subcompact electric cars under the Wuling brand.
GM’s two joint ventures in 2023 will roll out more than 20 new and refreshed models, of which more than one third will be electrified products, GM China said.
The electrified vehicles to be introduced this year will include Ultium platform-based models from Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet, it added.
