Cain's Segments: Full-Size Trucks In The Year 2014
Pickup trucks soared to their highest total of 2014 during the month of December, climbing 18% to 237,635, equal to 14% of the overall auto industry’s new vehicle volume. Truck sales jumped 6% to 2.3 million in 2014.
• GM twins outsold F-Series in December
• F-Series outsold GM twins in 2014
• Ram makes biggest market share gains
Full-size trucks generated 88.9% of all pickup sales activity in December, down from 90.1% a year ago as General Motors contributed more than 5500 Colorado/Canyon sales to the mix, strengthening the small corner of the market held by small/midsize pickups.
Led by big GM improvements, the full-size sector grew by 30,522 units last month. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra combined to outsell the Ford F-Series, as it transition to a 2015 F-150, by 6918 units. Joining GM’s surge, Ram P/U sales shot up 32% to 44,222 units, making December the third month in 2014 that Ram sales shot beyond the 40K mark.
Over the course of 2014, the F-Series outsold the GM twins by 12,263 units. Predictably, Ford suffered market share losses. Perhaps less predictably, it was Ram and not GM which managed to eat up the larger chunk of Ford’s lost share. Ford’s share of the full-size category slid by more than three percentage points; Ram picked up slightly less than three percentage points.
TruckDec.2014ShareDec.2013Share2014Share2013ShareFord F-Series35.2%41.3%36.5%39.9%Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra38.5%33.4%35.9%34.8%Ram P/U20.9%18.5%21.3%18.6%Toyota Tundra5.0%6.1%5.7%5.9%Nissan Titan0.4%0.7%0.6%0.8%—————Full-Size Share Of Total Pickup Truck Market88.9%90.1%89.1%87.9%Full-Size Pickup Share Of Total Industry14.0%13.3%12.5%12.3%GM’s market share improved more noticeably at the end of the year, however. In December, for example, GM’s share of the full-size truck market jumped from 33.4% to 38.5%, year-over-year.
What impact can smaller trucks have in 2015? Will Ford be forced to incentivize their aluminum-intensive F-150 in order to hold its position? Will fuel economy be a concern by the second-half of 2015 as it was in the first-half of 2014? Might Toyota see its revamped-but-not-all-new Tundra stumble as the market expands? Can a new Nissan Titan make headway?
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.
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I can hardly wait for the gas prices to jump higher than they ever have before; and you know they will. It's just a matter of time. When they do, all these Road Whales will be headed for the used car lots and down to Mexico while the market falls through the floor due to their abysmal fuel mileage. When that happens, those South American compacts are going to start looking pretty good.
I get that as gas prices fall, more people tend to purchase less fuel efficient vehicles (unwisely perhaps, but it's a free country). I believe I read on this site that Texas is the State with highest truck sales. Texas must be hard hit by the low oil price. Things in the oil patch are slowing up.