GM vehicle sales rise slightly in March

General Motors said Friday that its U.S. vehicle sales rose 0.9% in March, compared to a year earlier, despite rising discounts.

The automaker said its retail sales rose 6% to 193,524 vehicles in March, a positive sign that points toward higher profitability. The company has been slashing its reliance on less-profitable fleet sales to rental car companies, government customers and commercial users.

Its overall sales totaled 252,128 for the month. The company's overall sales performance trailed Edmunds.com analyst expectations of 1.8% growth and Kelley Blue Book expectations of 5.7%.

That came in spite of industry-high average incentives for a mainstream automaker. GM discounts averaged $3,943 per vehicle, up a whopping 28.5% compared to a year earlier, according to TrueCar.

One good sign was a 5.3% gain in average transaction prices to $36,786, according to TrueCar.

“The strong retail and commercial sales GM has been delivering are the result of a multi-year strategy to strengthen our brands, attract new customers and grow profitably,” said Kurt McNeil, GM's U.S. vice president of sales operation, in a statement.

For March, the Chevrolet brand posted a 1.4% sales gain to 176,283 units. The GMC brand rose 6.9% to 44,585, while the Cadillac brand slipped 5.1% to 13,053 and Buick fell 11.3% to 18,207.

Follow Paste BN reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.