Automotive manufacturer General Motors (NYSE:GM) reported Q3 2026 results exceeding the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 2.9% year on year to $50.02 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $3.70 per share was 1.9% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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General Motors (GM) Q3 2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $50.02 billion vs analyst estimates of $48.69 billion (2.9% year-on-year growth, 2.7% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $3.70 vs analyst estimates of $3.63 (1.9% beat)
- Management raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $13.25 at the midpoint, a 1.9% increase
- Operating Margin: 7.2%, up from 2.2% in the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 11.4%, up from 10.2% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $72.61 billion
Company Overview
Founded in 1908 by William C. Durant, General Motors (NYSE:GM) offers a range of vehicles and automobiles through brands such as Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Over the last five years, General Motors grew its sales at a mediocre 7.4% compounded annual growth rate. This fell short of our benchmark for the industrials sector and is a rough starting point for our analysis.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. General Motors’s recent performance shows its demand has slowed as its annualized revenue growth of 1.2% over the last two years was below its five-year trend. We’re wary when companies in the sector see decelerations in revenue growth, as it could signal changing consumer tastes aided by low switching costs. 
This quarter, General Motors reported modest year-on-year revenue growth of 2.9% but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 2.7%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to remain flat over the next 12 months. This projection is underwhelming and implies its newer products and services will not catalyze better top-line performance yet.
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Operating Margin
Operating margin is one of the best measures of profitability because it tells us how much money a company takes home after procuring and manufacturing its products, marketing and selling those products, and most importantly, keeping them relevant through research and development.
General Motors was profitable over the last five years but held back by its large cost base. Its average operating margin of 5.1% was weak for an industrials business. This result isn’t too surprising given its low gross margin as a starting point.
Looking at the trend in its profitability, General Motors’s operating margin decreased by 3.9 percentage points over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability. General Motors’s performance was poor no matter how you look at it - it shows that costs were rising and it couldn’t pass them onto its customers.
This quarter, General Motors generated an operating margin profit margin of 7.2%, up 5 percentage points year on year. Since its gross margin expanded more than its operating margin, we can infer that leverage on its cost of sales was the primary driver behind the recently higher efficiency.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth — for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
General Motors’s EPS grew at 11.9% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years, higher than its 7.4% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.
Diving into the nuances of General Motors’s earnings can give us a better understanding of its performance. A five-year view shows that General Motors has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 39.5%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings. 
Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.
For General Motors, its two-year annual EPS growth of 16.8% was higher than its five-year trend. We love it when earnings growth accelerates, especially when it accelerates off an already high base.
In Q3, General Motors reported adjusted EPS of $3.70, up from $2.80 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 1.9%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects General Motors’s full-year EPS to grow 9.2% from $13.48 to $14.72.
Key Takeaways from General Motors’s Q3 Results
We enjoyed seeing General Motors beat analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its full-year EPS guidance slightly missed. Overall, this print had some key positives. The market seemed to be hoping for more, and the stock traded down 4.8% to $78.79 immediately after reporting.
So do we think General Motors is an attractive buy at the current price? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).