Blog Posts

GM Is Winning the Sales Battle in First Half of 2018

If you compare pickup truck sales from the first half of 2018 with the first half of 2017, there are some interesting data points. Yes, Ford looks to be on track — if it has a normal second half and that's a big if — to sell 1 million F-Series pickups or just shy of that number. That's something no manufacturer has accomplished in the history of the auto industry. But that might not be the whole story.

Market share is the percentage of a manufacturer's total pickup sales, to both consumers and fleets buyers. For example, since GM has both Chevrolet and GMC nameplates in at least two pickup truck classes (mid-size and full-size) while Ford and Ram have just one nameplate in each class. Clearly, comparing Ford F-Series numbers with Chevrolet Silverado or Ram numbers tells only one piece of the story.

If we group pickup truck sales by manufacturer (and for GM that means the Chevrolet Colorado and Silverado, and the GMC Canyon and Sierra) and calculate market-share percentages, and then compare 2017 to 2018, we see some interesting results about which truckmaker is up and which one is down.

Total pickup truck sales for the first half (January to June) of 2017 were 1,336,706. Total pickup truck sales for the first half (January to June) of 2018 were 1,415,389. That's a healthy increase of almost 6 percent in overall pickup truck sales. Below are truckmakers respective market share percentages for the first half of 2017 and 2018:

• Ford:     32.2 percent (2017);   31.9 percent (2018)
• GM:       32.0 percent (2017);   33.8 percent (2018)
• Ram:     18.7 percent (2017);   16.5 percent (2018)
• Toyota:  11.1 percent (2017);   12.2 percent (2018)
• Nissan:    4.7 percent (2017);    4.6 percent (2018)
• Honda:     1.4 percent (2017);    1.1 percent (2018)

In market-share percentages, GM made the biggest jump — from 32.0 to 33.8 year to year — with an increase of more than 50,000 sales for 2018 (427,282 in 2017 versus 478,671 in 2018). Ford's market share, on the other hand, dropped slightly from 32.2 to 31.9, even though Ford sold more than 20,000 F-Series pickups in 2018 over 2017 (451,138 versus 429,860). Ram had the largest market-share drop, falling more than 2 full percentage points. Nissan and Honda lost market share, too.

Don't expect the Pickup Wars to slow down anytime soon, even if the economy takes a sharp turn and slows down. It's possible that an economic downturn could ramp up competition on dealer lots, triggering a wave of aggressive incentive spending like we haven't seen in years. Manufacturers will have to be smart about their tactics and choose their regional battles carefully if they don't want to make some of the same production mistakes they made in 2008-09.