Despite the strong earnings, revenues still fell year-over-year. For this recent quarter, the company had revenues of $46.81 billion, which was down from last year's $53.9 billion. Another weak area that continues to linger over the head of GM executives is automaker's poor performance in the U.S. market, where once again it showed a loss from operations this quarter of $39 million.

The loss in North America, however, was counterbalanced by a strong quarter in its overseas markets where GM posted solid profits. In Europe, the company had net income of $217 million (compared to a $39 million loss last year). In its Asian Pacific markets GM had posted a net profit of $227. The company had its best quarter in over a decade in the Latin America, Africa and Middle East markets. In these markets the company boasted net income of $213 million.

All in all, it was a great quarter for the automaker, and it definitely looks like its turnaround program is working out as the company had hoped. The company's CFO, Fritz Henderson, stated that he remains confident the company is going to able to hit its target of $9 billion worth of annual cost cuts this year.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.