Cain's Segments: Small/Midsize Truck Sales In December And 2014

General Motors’ U.S. market share in the small/midsize truck category grew in December 2014 to 21.1% from 13.9% in November. According to inventory statistics from Automotive News, GM dealers had approximately 9400 Chevrolet Colorados and GMC Canyons in stock at the beginning of December.

• Tacoma and Frontier rising

• GM earning market share

• Small/midsize trucks account for 1/10 pickup sales

Yet a booming auto industry and a surging pickup market meant that even with this new level of competition from the GM midsize pickups, widely regarded as the modern members of the class, the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier each posted 12% year-over-year improvements in December.

Naturally, the arrival of competition that didn’t exist a year before brought down their market share, but the Tacoma added 1523 sales; the Frontier another 649.

Although the Colorado and Canyon arrived in numbers at the beginning of the fourth-quarter, we’ve yet to see their full impact. Toyota appears inclined to rest on their laurels – and their profit-building platform – with their refresh of the Tacoma which TTAC displayed last night.

The current Ridgeline is fading fast. Nissan has gone back and forth on future Frontier plans, but we do know we can expect something new in the not too distant future.

But we’re also approaching the slowest buying season of the year (consumers typically purchase and lease 25% fewer new vehicles in January than they did at the end of the previous year) which could hinder our ability to see how much progress the Colorado and Canyon are making.

Non-full-size trucks accounted for 11.3% of the overall pickup market in 2013, a figure which fell to 10.9% in calendar year 2014. Results at the end of the year didn’t tell a significantly altered story, as these five pickups combined to generate just 11.1% of the U.S. auto industry’s pickup volume.

The reason? While the small/midsize trucks combined for a 34% year-over-year improvement, sales of three major full-size pickups – Silverado, Ram, Sierra – jumped 34%, as well, driving the full-size market to a 211,000-unit total.

Will 2015 be any different?

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.