General Motors, along with Chrysler, took advantage of October’s strong auto sales, stealing pickup truck market share away from Ford. GM sold 46,966 Chevrolet Silverados and an additional 18,564 GMC Sierras, representing year-over-year growth of 10% and 12%, respectively.
In total, GM moved 65,530 full-size pickups in October, compared to Ford which sold 63,410 F-150s. Ford expected the sales downturn, as it’s gearing up to launch the highly-anticipated 2015 F-150 next month. Retail deliveries of the new truck are backed up until February, so Ford has pulled back their incentives on outgoing models in order to maintain inventory until that time.
Analysts are touting October as the strongest month for U.S. auto sales in 10 years, so if the trend continues, GM would be smart to capitalize on the active market. Offering up stronger incentives before Ford can bring their new F-150 to market may help them scoop up a few would-be F-series buyers. Of course pickup truck buyers are notoriously loyal, so many F-150 buyers will be happy to wait patiently until December.
GM also sold 1,491 Chevrolet Colorados and 667 GMC Canyons in October, for a combined total of 2,158 units. Sales of the new midsize pickups are expected to increase in coming months as showroom availability increases and GM’s ad campaign for the trucks begins to gain traction. We also wouldn’t be surprised if all the #technologyandstuff buzz helps get a few more customers in the Colorado’s or Canyon’s seats for November.
Comments
Looks like Ford is still ahead in the overall sales numbers for this year: 620,447 to 594,972 for GM. I’m surprised how close its gotten in the second half of the year, as it took quite a while for the new GM twins to catch on.
Simple math puts GM’s truck sales off the pace of Ford by a little more than 4%.
1 – (594972 / 620447) = 0.0410591073854817575070876319814585290927347541369367 = 4.105%
If anyone thinks that GM and Ford are engaged in a ceaseless and fierce war for that 4% as if it were a life and death matter, I think you’ll be sadly mistaken. Both Ford and GM are cleaning up nicely every model year and are likely quite happy that their sales are where they are. Ford will have the greater unit sales each year, and GMC can easily command a higher MSRP. That 4% matters to only the die-hards.
I would think that FCA should be concerned about the Ram range, but I think even they know they haven’t the manufacturing ability or means to get to the scale and volume of GM and Ford.
Ram sales are up and making very nice profits for fca. I don’t think they are worried at all.
Good for GM. Incentives and 0% financing will do that, still surprising to me, though, with the General’s pig headed devotion to old technology. As with the recent GOP success, a sign that the resistant to progress, Caucasian, silver haired people ain’t dead just yet.
@magirus
Settle down there, you racist!
GM sales are still not where they should be. In 2007 GM+Chevy was 826,500 and 664,803 in 2013. F-series sales in 2007 were 690,589 and 763,402 in 2013. Ram sold 358,295 in 2007 and is up to 359,702 through October of this year. So where did all the GM sales go? With a 7% increase GM+ Chevy will be around 125,000 short of 2007 while Ford and GM have increased sales. Somewhere along the way GM lost a bunch of sales and didn’t get them back.
I’ve personally never liked how GM has to market and sell the same truck under two brands in order to outsell the competition; and in most cases the Ford trucks still manages to move more units! Go figure!
Nevertheless it’s good to see GM selling these rigs. But the competition is fierce! With a new F-150 soon to hit dealers and the rather old, but very solid and capable Ram trucks on the rise consistently, GM cannot let up!
GM used to outsell Ford with the two brands all the time — the American Axle strike many years ago crippled GM’s truck production, then there was the recession and then bankruptcy. Eliminating many dealers eliminated sales outlets which had an effect too.
GM’s best strategy now would be to add more GMC dealers….GMC outsells Chevy north of the border and seems to have a broader appeal. I would love to see some recent stats on things like second choice for pick up truck owners.
I agree in the past it at times was puzzling but today they have found great traction with the GMC line and the Denali models are pure high profit. I would say all the Denali models are making the higher profit per unit sold in each Segment they are in.
Slap some chrome and stitching on and mark it up.
GMC also offers GM the ability to move into other models like a Wrangler type vehicle at some point. I see them expanding into some special niche models once things settle down. They can do the higher prices and lower volume much easier. Like Lutz said he should have made Hummer a Model of GMC and not a brand as it would have been much easier and cheaper to manage.
Not to be a troll, but it’s interesting from looking at sales figures that the truck with far more American made parts–the Tundra of all things–doesn’t seem to be selling at all anymore.
American-Made parts for Foreign Profit. The average consumer knows that or at least should know that.
The new F-Series will tear GM apart. They need to work much faster on the refreshed trucks. I’m expecting everything GM has to be put into these trucks. Stop/Start and Regen Brakes on all eAssist models.
Light Duty-
3.2CDTi V6 with 280HP and 470LB-FT (8) / 29mpg
3.6L eAssist V6 with 335HP and 295LB-FT (8) / 28mpg
5.3L eAssist V8 with 365HP and 390LB-FT (8) / 25mpg
6.2L eAssist V8 with 470HP and 480LB-FT (10) / 22mpg
8-Speed Automatic
10-Speed Automatic
Heavy Duty-
6.2L V8 with 460HP and 465LB-FT (10)
6.6CDTi DuraMax V8 with 435HP and 800LB-FT (8)
10-Speed Automatic
8-Speed Allison Automatic
In trucks it is all about brand loyalty.
This is why even with massive changes to the models the needle moves do little. Also a lot of Ford sales are fleet sales vs. less GM fleet sales since they have gotten away from much of that.
The bottom line is keep a reasonable market share but make max profits on these models as they are using them to fund the revamp of the many other products.
The latest truck was shorted many things as GM had neither the luxury of time or lead time to get all they wanted. They focused the energy mostly on the engine as this was where the most important changes were needed. I see the next model coming in 2 years will have many more changes as they will have more time not just coming out of chapter 11 this time.
So many fail to understand and realize many models like the Malibu, XTS, C7, Trucks, and Impala are models with roots that started before the Chapter 11.
As for Ram right now they are picking up sales based on price. The key is will they pick up repeat buyers? Chrysler has the lowest repeat buyers of everyone accept Mitsubishi. It is around 24% based on last year. Fiat has not shown much moves for the long term but word is they have a smaller truck in the works but have not approved it yet.
They may be new models but they are compromised by time. They either did not get a lot of development time or they were started shelved and reactivated later to where they show they fell a little behind. The Malibu is the perfect example as it was show to the media in 2008 delayed till just a couple years ago. GM was between a rock and a hard place. Do they wait and redo the entire car and keep with the outdated model started in 2008? Or do the get the one they shelved out and buy a little time till they get to what they really want.
If you look at Chrysler they chose to stay with the old products till they got the new ones out. Because of that they are sitting on the oldest product out there looking for ways to buy time. Case in Point look at the Challenger. While they cooked up a new engine the car is still behind and is falling farther behind as the new Camaro and Mustang will have a couple years in before they get their new model.
To really understand what is going on you really have to study the business side of things and the timing of the programs. Automakers can not so all things at once and have to pick and choose what they so. GM lost a year or two in 09-10 and that hurt. But it would have hurt more if they had taken the path Chrysler chose.
GM will be fine with their trucks but all MFG are going to hit the wall soon with the half ton markets. Aluminum alone will not make the numbers need that we know of and future numbers to be determined. This segment is going to have to change in how trucks are built and how they are sold.
While Ford has lost weight claimed around 700 pounds they were already over weight so the net gain on the others is around 300 pounds. Look for them to move to a second Gen Ranger that is just a little smaller and take the path GM is taking. They both are going to the same destination just GM did the small truck first and Ford did the Aluminum first.
The key is mass and the only way to lose much mass in the half ton segment is size. That is not what I stated but I have heard it from Ford and GM engineers.
This is why we are seeing so much more effort in the 3/4 ton trucks as they do not need the same MPG as a half ton. This is also why the Colorado is near the size of a half ton truck and not smaller like an S10.
Going down the lines of the loyalty concern, what isn’t mention is the age demographics of the buyers.
While Ram has the fewest sales, it very securely owns the under 35 year old buyers, and battles for the 40s with Chevy. Ford, while going head to head with GM in sales numbers, has buyers with an average age 10 years above that of GM. In other words, Ford is wrestling with the same issues of companies such as Cadillac- They aren’t getting younger buyers and they are losing buyers to age!
GM holds the middle age demographics. So the question moving forward is: If Brand loyalty stays consistent, Ram should increase big time, Ford will drop big time, and GM will remain fairly static. GM is actually overlappign demographics with Ram moreso than Ford.
I don’t however think that loyalty will necessarily stay the same. Ford will have to find a way to invigorate younger buyers- the hybrids options announced might do that. Chevy, who 20 years ago dominated the younger buyers, will recognize this soon enough with their NEXT generation (not this one coming out now). Ram on the other hand simply needs to make sure it maintains the loyalty of its current buyers, because they have quite a few more new trucks in their future.
GM could *in theory* leverage its two brands, GMC and Chevy to effectively “choke” Ford in the middle, although they haven’t seemed to try to do that yet. May be a coke-vs-pepsi strategy, where Ford and GM are best simply letting there be two major players and keep everyone else irrevalent. Ram is the wrench in this strategy. While their sales are nowhere close to what Ford and GM are, they are still a huge number compared to other vehicles- enough to have true cost advantages due to volume, and enough to be a threat. Do ford and GM accept Ram as part of the “3” and then use that group to fend off the “rest”?- Nissan, Toyota, mitsubishi, Honda? Or do they try and keep Ram out? Since Ram owns specific demographics, that could ultimately be a risky strategy too.
While Ford and GM will “fight” on paper, I think Ram is really the brand to watch because they have effectively grabbed the young buyers in a brand-loyal market, and that is going to have long term reprocussions for the Truck Market. Fords biggst concern is going to be with consumer aging. With a median age in the mid 50s, are they purely counting on the conversion of dissatisfied GM and Ram buyers moving forward? As Scott3 said- in a brand loyal area, that may not be a winning strategy…
The 2015 F150 will be all aluminum except for the frame. Beware ! When you see your Insurance premiums go skyrocketing through the roof because of the repair costs and procedures are so labor intensive that Insurance companies will not want to pay out what it will be costing them that they will pass it on to their insured. Good luck going to the down the road collision center because not even half of them have the equipment and skilled techinicians to repair them properly.
I’ll take a GM or Ford any day before I will be caught in a Fiat Ram Dodge. Fiat has always build the sorriest cars (and now trucks) on the face of this planet. Just look at any old Fiat. Just junk!! Look at the new Fiat 500. Just Junk. Give another 5 years and Chrysler will be. Just Junk.
This sales situation must be why Ford just lowered the prices on their trucks recently. I just did a GMC to Ford comparison online using a baseline double cab scenario with same options on both and the Ford came out $3000 cheaper. I did the same thing with a GMC to Chevy comparison and the GMC came out $300 cheaper. The passenger vans were the exact same across the board. I would rather pay the extra 3 grand and have a GMC or Chevy personally. But that is Ford’s plan, I guess.