Cain's Segments: Trucks - September 2014

As is the norm, Ford’s F-Series topped September 2014’s sales charts, but if a true winner was to be crowned after a quick glance at the results tables, Chevrolet’s Silverado must surely take the cake.

Not only did Silverado sales rise more rapidly than any other pickup truck – faster than the Ram’s 30% jump; better than the Nissan Frontier’s 47% rise – but the Silverado also powered General Motors to a second consecutive F-Series-besting month.

Combined, the Silverado and Sierra generated 66,939 September sales, 7076 more than the total achieved by the F-Series and 83% better than the figures put up by the Ram truck lineup. GM says this many Silverados haven’t been sold during the month of September since 2008. It was the Silverado’s best month overall since December 2012.

As a result, GM’s share of the full-size pickup truck category grew from 31.8% in September 2013 to 38.7% in September 2014.

GM’s market share through the first three-quarters of 2014, however, has only risen slightly during a year in which, because of the Ford F-Series’s transition to a long-since-revealed new generation, there was room to gain an advantage.

Instead, Chrysler Group’s Ram brand filled the void. As GM pickup sales rose rapidly in September, Ram sales took off, as well. Yet while sales of the Silverado didn’t manage to grow at the pace of the overall category over the last nine months, Ram truck sales jumped 22%. Ram’s share of the full-size category thus rose from 18.6% during the first nine months of 2013 to 21.3% during the same period this year, an increase valued at slightly more than the lost market share at Ford.

Sales at General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and the Chrysler Group totalled 572,845 units in September 2014, an 11.3% increase compared with September 2013. Full-size pickup trucks accounted for 28.5% of that total, up from 26.1% a year ago.

The most recent introduction of new trucks, from General Motors, was expected to shake up the sales race. It did, and not in the direction one would have anticipated, at least not at first. A more major shakeup is expected with the aluminum-intensive Ford trucks, but will market share results like the figures seen in this post be seriously altered?

Ford customers will be comforted by predictable styling changes that cover up the new construction techniques and, based on early reports, won’t be dismayed by a lack of power in the 2.7L EcoBoost V6. Other aging trucks will see their incentives boosted, Ram will make the EcoDiesel more readily available, and Toyota and Nissan will likely continue to struggle to make inroads.