General Motors (GM) gave investors something to cheer early Tuesday morning after the automaker raised its guidance for a third time this year, in addition to easily beating third quarter revenue and profit expectations.

For the quarter, GM reported revenue of $48.78 billion, easily topping estimates of $44.69 billion per Bloomberg consensus and higher than the prior quarter’s nearly $48 billion. GM’s Q3 revenue was also 10.5% higher than a year ago.

The company booked adjusted earnings per share of $2.96, far outstripping expectations of $2.44. It reported EBIT-adjusted profit of $4.115 billion, up 15.5% from a year ago, with EBIT-adjusted margin climbing to 8.4% from 8.1% year over year.

GM stock jumped nearly 8% in early trading.

In terms of guidance, GM made the following upward revisions to its full-year 2024 forecast:

• Adjusted EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes): $14 billion to $15 billion ($13 billion-$15 billion previously)

• Automotive operating cash flow: $22 billion to $24 billion ($19.2 billion-$22.2 billion previously)

• Adjusted automotive free cash flow: $12.5 billion to $13.5 billion ($9.5 billion-$11.5 billion previously)

• Diluted-adjusted EPS: $10 to $10.50 ($9.50-$10.50 previously)

“I’m proud that GM is delivering our best vehicles ever with strong financial results. But I want to be clear that we are not mistaking progress for winning,” GM CEO Mary Barra wrote in her letter to shareholders. “Competition is fierce, and the regulatory environment will keep getting tougher. That’s why we are focused on optimizing our ICE [internal combustion engine vehicle] margins and working to make our EVs profitable on an EBIT basis as quickly as possible.”

GM CFO Paul Jacobson added in a media call with reporters that while the reduction of GM’s share count by 19% via buybacks provided a “tailwind” to the EPS beat, the profit beat was due more to the earnings power of the company’s fundamental business.

Jacobson told Yahoo Finance the company would stay aggressive on buybacks in 2025.

In Q3, GM delivered 659,601 vehicles, down 2% compared with a year ago; however, retail sales were up 3%. GM said it delivered more vehicles than any other automaker in the US in the quarter.

Not surprisingly, GM’s sales of pickups and full-size SUVs led the way, but electric vehicle sales were also a highlight. Amid a drop in sales for the Bolt EV, GM’s other EV models picked up the slack with sales of 32,195 EVs in total, up 60% compared to a year ago.

Jacobson said at GM’s investor day in early October that the company is still targeting EV profitability on a positive variable profit margin basis, despite the fact that it revised its EV production volume forecast to 200,000 units, at the low end of its previous range of 200,000 to 250,000 units. The company is expecting to trim EV costs by $2 billion to $4 billion in 2025.

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In the media call, Jacobson elaborated on why variable profit was so important. “Variable profit is a really important step on the journey to profitability. It means you reached an inflection point,” he said, where scaling up sales starts to eat into high fixed costs. “As we scale, our EBIT losses start to come down,” he added.

During its investor day, GM indicated that the peak EV losses in 2024 will “help [in] upcoming years as we expect EV EBIT to improve significantly.”

Looking ahead, Barra said GM expects 2025 adjusted EBIT to be in a similar range to the full-year 2024 results, as the company said during its investor day.

Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram.

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