February 2015 Full-Size Pickup Truck Sales Up 8%: GM Gains Plenty Of Market Share
One year ago, when we began tracking the monthly market share movement in America’s full-size pickup truck sector, General Motors had just seen its February market share fall from 39% in February 2013 to 35% one year later. Their trucks were new, but GM’s volume wasn’t matching the heavily incentivized sales production of their predecessors.
The story is turned on its head one year later, as Ford’s transition into a new F-Series lineup has caused a slight slowdown in a booming category. Full-size truck volume jumped 8% in February 2015, but F-Series sales slid 1%. GM, on the other hand, reported 8811 more Chevrolet Silverado sales this February than last along with more than 900 extra GMC Sierra sales.
Thus, at the expense of Ford (which lost more than three percentage points of market share), Ram (which lost three-tenths of a percentage point), and Nissan (which also lost three-tenths of a percentage point), GM’s market share in America’s full-size pickup category grew to 38.6% in February 2015 from 35% a year ago, and from 34.6% a month ago.
TruckFeb.2015Feb.2014%Change2 mos.20152 mos.2014%ChangeFord F-Series55,23655,882-1.2%109,606102,4187.0%Chevrolet Silverado45,39536,58424.1%81,50165,51024.4%Ram P/U31,29829,3036.8%59,91654,37410.2%GMC Sierra15,15714,2326.5%27,77825,3509.6%Toyota Tundra9,0527,92314.3%17,24915,8139.1%Nissan Titan8161,117-26.9%1,5902,004-20.7%—— —————Total156,954145,0418.2%297,640265,46912.1%Although Ram volume improved in February – the 58th consecutive month of YOY Ram P/U growth – the FCA pickup’s market share declined on a YOY basis for the second consecutive month. The Ram’s impressive growth in the first two months of 2015 simply isn’t quite as impressive as the growth in the overall segment. February was the first month since August that the Ram wasn’t America’s third-best-selling vehicle.
TruckFeb.2015ShareFeb.2014Share2 mos. 2015Share2 mos. 2014ShareFord F-Series35.2%38.5%36.8%38.6%Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra38.6%35.0%36.7%34.2%Ram P/U19.9%20.2%20.1%20.5%Toyota Tundra5.8%5.5%5.8%6.0%Nissan Titan0.5%0.8%0.5%0.8%—————Full-Size Share Of Total Pickup Truck Market85.0%89.0%84.8%88.7%Full-Size Pickup Share Of Total Industry 12.5%12.1%12.3%12.0%February was also a return to form for the combined GM twins. Together, the Silverado and Sierra outsold the F-Series in each of 2014’s final five months. Ford leaped ahead by a wide margin in January, but its year-to-date lead over the GM pair is now down to 337 units heading into March.
Results to this point aren’t meaningless. Nearly 300,000 full-size pickup trucks were sold in January and February. But after January’s low-volume potential and a February that was brought below forecasts because of winter weather, March’s end to the first-quarter will give us more to work with. In 2012, March was the highest-volume month for new vehicle sales volume. It was the second-highest-volume month in 2013 and the third-highest-volume month for auto sales last year.
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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GM's new truck platforms has been slowly accepted in the marketplace. They are basically making up lost ground from the year before. A lot of guys thought the Silverado was too retro and many don't like the very existence of the Sierra. Chevy also gets hurt by not having a Denali grade package. The High Country is basically mid level bling when compared to Ford and Ram's lineup. Ram was due to slow down in sales due to approaching max capacity. Ford obviously will see a loss of market share due to the change over to the aluminum F150. You can also factor in those who are not early adopters and will wait and watch these new trucks for flaws and new vehicle gremlins.