General Motors Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson addresses the 2013 General Motors annual meeting.

The facts show the bailout of American automobile industry has been a success, at least according to Dan Akerson, General Motors chairman and chief executive officer, who made the assertion to shareholders at the company’s annual stockholders meeting in Detroit.

“Four years on, it’s pretty hard to argue it wasn’t successful,” he said. “The American public has been well served. All three American companies are profitable and the American manufacturing base is still 50% larger than China’s.”

Akerson acknowledged the decision to bailout Detroit carmakers was very controversial at the time. However, the decision by “two administrations with very different political perspectives” has proven its worth by helping protect the U.S. manufacturing base during the recession. The bailout also meant the U.S. government didn’t have to cover $26 billion in pension costs connected to the automakers.

GM’s global revenues were more than $152 billion, up $2 billion from a year ago, Akerson said during his speech to shareholders

“Behind that figure is the fact that more Americans buy their cars and trucks from GM than any other automaker. For that matter, more Chinese customers do too,” Akerson said.

“Our joint ventures have now outsold all other automakers in China for eight consecutive years,” he said. “In fact, we outsold six of the top Japanese automakers combined in 2012. That’s the reward for investing early and staying on offense. Turning to our profits, we earned $7.9 billion in EBIT-adjusted, which is earnings before interest expense and taxes, adjusted for special items.”

Akerson also told attendees that GM’s success wasn’t limited to the U.S. and China.

“All of our business units were profitable, except for GM Europe, but we have stabilized the business there despite the fact that sales have dropped to 20-year lows,” he said. “Our steady progress has not gone unnoticed on Wall Street. In fact, one investor recently told me how refreshing it is to talk product strategy with the GM team, instead of things like credit risk.

“It’s refreshing to us too. And the change in the conversation about GM has helped drive our stock price, which was up 42% in 2012,” he said. “The stock has continued to perform well this year too, with a roughly 20% increase year-to-date. Of course, the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department is selling its GM stock has been welcomed by other investors. So has Standard & Poor’s decision to add General Motors to the S&P 500 index.”

GM still faces clear challenges such as rising material costs, product complexity and improving quality, he said.

But GM is developing most robust business applications by deploying new strategies.

“When we outsourced our IT in the 1980s, the company was operating with calculators and typing pools,” he said. “Now IT touches every aspect of the business, which is why GM has elected to bring the IT back in house and is investing millions of dollars in new data centers and is hiring 4,000 technically trained professionals to the staff.

“GM also has re-invigorated the company’s research and development effort. They’ve recaptured their entrepreneurial spirit focusing on outcomes that matter to customers.”

Akerson said GM continues to focus on development in China through its joint venture partners. Revenue from the China ventures isn’t consolidated, but the operations are completely self-sustaining and returned a dividend of $1.7 billion to GM. It’s business that has been good for GM and U.S. taxpayers, he said.

(U.S. Treasury rushing out to sell more GM stock. Click Here to read more.)

Overall, GM and its joint ventures also sold a May record 252,942 vehicles in China. Sales increased 9.4% from the same month last year. Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling as well as all of their brands also had all-time sales highs for the month.

Shanghai GM’s domestic sales rose 18.4% from May 2012 to 117,381 units. SAIC-GM-Wuling sold 130,462 vehicles in China, an increase of 2.1% year on year. FAW-GM sold 4,727 vehicles in the domestic market last month, which was up 25.9% from last May.

(Click Here to read about GM rejoining the S&P 500.)

Buick sales in China totaled 63,007 units in May, an increase of 22.7% from the same month last year. Sales of its original Excelle family continued to grow, rising 7.2% year on year to 24,756 units. Sales of the Excelle XT and GT were also strong, growing 36.9% to 16,410 units.