General Motors is well-positioned to clean up in the pickup truck segment, as outlined by the President of GM North America, Barry Engle. Engle spoke at the recent GM Capital Markets Day event, where he addressed expectations for the latest GM truck models.
“We expect continued truck share gains in 2020 given a full year of production across the entire model range of our all-new trucks,” Engle said during his presentation.
As we covered previously, the GM trucks lineup recently completed its launch cadence, with the low-cost, Regular Cab entry-level trims of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HD pickups launching in Q4 of 2019. As Engle points out, 2019 was essentially a transitional year for the Silverado and Sierra, as production of the light-duty pickups launched in the first half of the year and the HD trucks ramped up production afterwards, limiting overall availability.
Looking over GM’s business performance in 2019, Chevy and GMC full-size pickups were the main drivers, with 802,295 pickups sold, and combined retail market share growing almost a full percentage point.
Full-Size Pickup Truck Sales - Q4 2019 - USA
| MODEL | Q4 19 / Q4 18 | Q4 19 | Q4 18 | Q4 19 SHARE | Q4 18 SHARE | YTD 19 / YTD 18 | YTD 19 | YTD 18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FORD F-SERIES | +1.58% | 233,952 | 230,312 | 35% | 35% | -1.41% | 896,526 | 909,330 |
| RAM RAM PICKUP | +6.93% | 172,579 | 161,397 | 26% | 24% | +18.01% | 633,694 | 536,980 |
| CHEVROLET SILVERADO | +1.34% | 163,341 | 161,178 | 24% | 24% | -1.70% | 575,600 | 585,581 |
| GMC SIERRA | +2.09% | 68,722 | 67,312 | 10% | 10% | +5.82% | 232,323 | 219,554 |
| TOYOTA TUNDRA | -15.96% | 25,611 | 30,476 | 4% | 5% | -5.57% | 111,673 | 118,258 |
| NISSAN TITAN | -51.65% | 6,102 | 12,620 | 1% | 2% | -37.55% | 31,514 | 50,459 |
| TOTAL | +1.06% | 670,307 | 663,295 | +2.53% | 2,481,330 | 2,420,162 |
Now, however, with the full-size GM trucks lineup complete, GM looks poised to benefit from a full year of sales for this highly profitable vehicle lineup.
Late last month, we posted a story highlighting GM’s impressive 41 percent retail market share for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra in the first month of the year. That’s a sizable jump from the annual figures posted in 2018 and 2019, which come to 35.6 percent and 36.6 percent, respectively.
It’s also worth noting that full-size pickups account for roughly half of GM North America’s earnings.
Comments
I’d like to see what company makes the most profits off of the truck sales.
I would guess GM with cheapo interior and mexico produced 1500s
Ford has a higher percentage of fleet sales and those aluminum bodies have to be more expensive. Ford’s warranty expenses have been through the roof lately too.
I’d like to see consumers realize that they could be paying at least $10,000 less on these trucks just on sticker price and the automaker still make a lot of money.
These prices are outrageous!
EV Research needs to be funded somehow
true dat
These trucks are only expensive if you are cheap. I purchased a new trailboss last year. If you can’t afford then dont buy one
I bought a 2019 High Country last year. $13,000 less than sticker. No money down. No trade. I am not cheap. I am smart.
Love everyone’s opinion on GM’s pickup truck business and pricing..that said, the only real truth is that GM sells 800K of them a year for an avg of $50k each, and if GM’s margin on each one is say 15%, that’s $6B of contribution margin…that means for GM, there are 800k relevant opinions, and the fact that they’ve left themselves enough margin to throw out a few timely discounts and still maintain a 15% margin, just equates to a pretty solid business that doesn’t just happen by accident. If it did, wouldn’t the geniuses across the Pacific and Atlantic have figured it out by now?
As for GM’s decisions over the past 10 years to focus on investing their available/invested capital on products which have an adequate number of prospects with ‘relevant opinions,’ and with enough price and margin to make ROIC work, that just sounds like smart business to me.
15% is a lowball estimate I would go with 25%
We still need an S10 size pickup. Especially since reg cab short box is gone.
How can this be good news when they are still losing
Losing how?
Regardless of why they are where they are, things appear to be looking up moving forward. Their percentage in the market is surprising to me but I am glad to see it. With the interior getting updated, that alone will make for a significant increase in their truck sales. There are some issues that need addressing, the L5P is behind the other two in hp and torque. I had gotten used to those lower numbers as GM has traditionally been the less impressive spec sheet but dominate in actual testing. That long time norm, came to a bitter end as both Ford SD and to a lesser degree Ram HD dominated the Duramax during IKE testing at 30K trailer weight. GM often seems to step in it at times, the lack luster interior of their new trucks, some would say the looks of the Chevy HD, and the mentioned low power of the Big Dmax. Overall however, I like the general direction and the changes that occur when they discover they took the wrong fork in the road at times. I would argue a lot of those mistakes should not happen, an example of that would be the 6 speed/3.73 running gear in the 6.6 HD gas truck. While it seems to be a three steps forward/two steps back approach, at least they are moving forward.
no updated interior till 22 1500 23hds fords will probably redesigned and ram will do a mid cycle refresh so IDK
Again–production of the light-duty trucks did not launch in the first half of 2019. That is plainly inaccurate when the trucks were on sale in fall of 2018. I don’t understand why you guys keep posting that line? Do you even read it?
These trucks are UGLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m happy I bought a 2018 LTZ!!!!!!!!
This body style looks way better than the current truck. The grill on the current truck is ugly and the 2500 grill looks even worse
When GM figures out one big reason they trail Ram is because of the lack luster interior, things will really improve for GM. GM has the superior truck, but many like myself will continue to hold on to our older models until the interiors at least come up to par with the competition, especially at this high price point. If they only upscaled the high country and left the other models alone, that would make a BIG difference