General Motors announced earlier today that it had earned $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2014, or 22 percent more than Q4 2013’s earnings, which hit around $900 million. This allowed GM to register a full-year income of $2.8 billion for 2014.
GM’s gross revenue for the entire calendar year of 2014 was $155.9 billion, which was notably lower than fiscal 2013’s year-end figures of $3.8 billion worth of income and $155.3 billion in gross revenue. 2014’s data takes into account $2.8 billion worth of expenses for recalls and another one billion dollars for restructuring.
In a press statement, GM CEO Mary Barra said that GM had come out strong in 2014, despite the multiple challenges it had faced last year, and in the years before. “A strong fourth quarter helped us deliver very good core operating results in 2014 despite significant challenges we and the industry faced,,” said Barra, also referencing the spate of recalls the U.S. auto industry had to deal with last year.
Another factor that gutted GM’s profits was GM Europe, which had lost $365 million in the fourth calendar quarter of 2014; this bumped up 2014’s full-year net loss to $393 million. According to GM, this was largely due to Russia’s weak economy and its weakening ruble. As we go through 2015, Russia will continue to be a headwind,” said GM CFO Chuck Stepehns. “But we’ve taken and will continue to take aggressive action to mitigate those issues.”