#TruckSales

In November 2015, for the first time since March, Ford’s F-Series outsold the combined efforts of General Motors’ full-size truck twins in the United States.

November’s results won’t change the fact that 2015 will go down as the first year since 2009 that GM’s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra will outsell their chief rival on a calendar year basis. Through the first eleven months of 2015, GM has sold 734,253 full-size pickup trucks, 39,110 more than the F-Series’ 695,143-unit total.

Not since 2009 has General Motors ended a calendar year with more total pickup truck sales than Ford. Moreover, not since 2009 have General Motors’ full-size pickup trucks, combined, outsold the Ford F-Series.

As GM’s current generation of pickup trucks overcame their slow start and GM added midsize pickup trucks to their fleet – and as Ford entered a transition phase between old F-150 and new aluminum-bodied F-150s – 2014’s results were close. Yet even in those circumstances, Ford Motor Company sold 1,000 more pickup trucks than General Motors in the United States last year.

2015 is very, very different. As Ford gradually ramped up F-150 availability for much of the year and as the clear-out of remaining last-gen models ended, total F-Series sales slid 2.4 percent through the first half of this year. Meanwhile, GM’s full-size twins are stealing market share, not just from the F-Series, but from the Ram P/U range, as well.

In each of the last 28 months, the Toyota Tacoma has been America’s fifth-best-selling pickup truck nameplate.

One might imagine, however, that its ability to succeed in its own sub-category of small/midsize trucks would have weakened over the last ten months. With the introduction of new midsize pickup trucks from General Motors, the best-selling manufacturer of pickup trucks in America, the number of Tacoma competitors increased from one, the Nissan Frontier, to three.

General Motors reported 86,051 U.S. pickup truck sales in July 2015, the highest figure for a seventh month of the year since 2006, GM says.

It does not appear as though the advent of new midsize GM trucks – Colorado and Canyon – have had any measurably negative impact on their full-size siblings. Combined, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra outsold the class-leading Ford F-Series by 9,900 copies in July. They lead the F-Series by more than 29,000 units heading into August.

U.S. sales of pickup trucks increased 10% through the first six months of 2015, a gain of more than 107,000 units over the span of 2015’s first-half.

Ford’s F-Series continues to be the category’s top seller, but F-Series volume has decreased in each of the last five months. Second-quarter sales slid 6.5%. As Ford properly equips its dealers with truck inventory and as the automaker figures out precisely how to price the new range of F-150s, we can expect to see F-Series numbers stabilize.

In the meantime, GM’s full-size twins have taken full advantage of the F-Series’ slide.

General Motors increased their share of America’s full-size pickup truck market from 35.5% in May 2014 to 38.1% in May 2015.

Grabbing hold of an opportunity presented by Ford’s F-150 supply constraints and consequent 10% overall F-Series decline, U.S. sales of the Chevrolet Silverado jumped 11%; GMC Sierra sales increased 4%. The full-size pickup truck market was up just 1.1%, year-over-year.

Midsize pickups have increased their share of the overall pickup truck category by around four percentage points since GM launched the second-generation Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon.

Compared with a period when the twins weren’t on sale, the volume sent the direction of midsize pickups jumped 50% over the first four months of 2015. That gain of 39,000 units wasn’t simply down to the GM twins, either, as the class-leading Toyota Tacoma is growing faster than the overall pickup truck category.

Midsize pickup truck sales jumped 48% to just under 31,000 units in April 2015, a gain of 10,000 units.

In April, the overall U.S. auto industry grew by approximately 64,000 sales. Overall pickup truck sales increased by 15,000 units. In other words, much of the growth in the pickup truck market last month was generated by the smaller quintet.

Year-to-date, the Toyota Tacoma-led small/midsize category has grown by more than 38,000 sales, slightly more than the 36,000 sales added by full-size pickup trucks.

Full-size pickup truck sales improved by a modest 3.1% as the U.S. auto industry climbed 4.6% in April 2015.

As a whole, the pickup truck category increased its sales at a faster clip than the overall industry, rising 7.8% thanks to 46% gains from small/midsize pickups, vehicles which accounted for 15% of all pickup truck sales in April 2015, up from 11% at this time a year ago.

The rapid ascent of the new Chevrolet Colorado finally slowed in March 2015 with month-to-month growth amounting to only 58 extra sales. Colorado volume has increased every month since the new truck arrived last fall, from 1491 units in its first full month of October to 6621 units in March.

But even with an overall pickup truck market that was 17% larger in March than in February, Colorado sales grew by just 0.9% during the same period.

Its twin, meanwhile, didn’t sell as often in March as it did in February, sliding from 2513 sales two months ago to 2434 last month.

Forecasts suggested that U.S. new vehicle sales would decline in March 2015, but the auto industry reported a slight uptick compared with March 2014. The moderate 0.5% improvement occurred despite a 4% passenger car sales decline and a 0.6% drop in full-size pickup truck sales.

• GM truck increase contrasts with overall GM decline

• Ram truck decrease contrasts with overall FCA improvement

Granted, the March decline for full-size trucks was slight; the F-Series, Ram, Tundra, and Titan decreases were nearly completely counteracted by a GM increase.

What do 58 consecutive months of year-over-year U.S. sales improvement look like? The accompanying chart is one way of looking at it. Ever since May 2010, Ram P/U sales have been on the rise. Most recently, this translated to a 24% year-over-year increase in calendar year 2014, a 14% jump in January 2015, and a 7% improvement last month.

General Motors has reported 28,218 sales of their new midsize trucks since the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon arrived late in September 2014. Sales of both trucks have increased every month since arriving at dealers. Colorado volume in February was 177% stronger than it was in November; Canyon sales shot up 194% during the same period.

Neither GM pickup is the top-selling non-full-size truck in America, however, nor can GM yet claim the title when their sales are combined. Since October, sales of the top-selling Toyota Tacoma have increased 10% to 64,093 units.

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.

The pickup truck world’s consistent hold on the whole of American best seller’s podium is steadily tightening.

January 2015 was the fifth consecutive month in which all three of America’s best-selling vehicle lines were pickup trucks.

It’s nothing new for Americans to see the Ford F-Series atop the monthly leaderboard. Not since the Cash For Clunkers-fuelled August 2009 has the F-Series not been the top-selling vehicle line in America.