General Motors Co. (GM) announced that it would temporarily shut down its pick-up truck plant in Louisiana on the back of a parts shortage due to damages caused by earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The plant, which produces Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, will be closed for the week ending March 21.

However, the automaker asserted that it has sufficient vehicles in its inventory to meet consumer demand. It expects to open the plant as soon as possible, although it did not mention a timeframe. The company also stated that its other North American plants are operating normally.

The facilities operated by many automakers, particularly in Japan, has been experiencing low auto parts inventories due to the earthquake and tsunami that killed about 10,000 people and damaged roads, ports and bridges.

Due to the earthquake, Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) decided to suspend production at its 12 wholly owned as well as its other partly owned plants till March 22. Meanwhile, Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY) decided to suspend production at 4 plants and 2 plants until March 20.

Honda Motor Co. (HMC) has ceased production at six plants in Japan through the end of the week. This apart, the company would shutter a research and development center in Tochigi on the death of one of its employees. Recently, the automaker revealed that it may suspend up to half of its workforce at its manufacturing facility in the Mexico’s Jalisco state due to low auto parts inventories.

GM, a Zacks #3 Rank (Hold) stock, posted a profit of 52 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2010, exceeding the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5 cents per share. The results excluded net charges of $0.4 billion due to the previously disclosed $0.7 billion loss on the purchase of U.S. Treasury preferred shares.

In absolute terms, the company turned a profit of $510 million during the quarter in sharp contrast to a loss of $3.52 billion in the comparable quarter of 2009 driven by the recovery in the North American and European automotive markets.

The automaker generated revenues of $36.9 billion during the quarter, which was higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $34.9 billion. Unit sales escalated 11% to 2,173 vehicles from 1,952 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2009. The automaker occupied a market share of 11.5% during the quarter, up from 11.4% in the year-ago quarter.

 
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