Cars and Drivers

Ford F-Series Pickups Lost 6.5 Points of Market Share in April

Paul Ausick

Published: May 2, 2017 11:45 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 12:25 pm

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 70,657 F-Series pickups in April, topping sales of General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Silverado by 30,503 units. Adding in sales of the GMC Sierra, Ford outsold GM in the pickup wars by 13,103 units.

Average incentives rose 13% in March across all vehicles to $3,511, and average per vehicle incentives have reached 10.5% of the sticker price as carmakers strive to hit a target of 17 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales. In the first half of April, incentives per vehicle averaged $3,814, according to J.D. Power and LMC Automotive. Incentives on trucks averaged $3,740 per unit, up $578 year over year.

Ford F-Series pickup sales slipped 0.2% year over year in April, compared with a decrease of 19.7% in Silverado sales and a drop of 15.3% in Sierra sales. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.’s (NYSE: FCAU) Ram pickup sales rose 8% year over year to 47,327 units sold in the month.

Other full-size pickups on offer in the United States are the Tundra from Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and the Nissan Titan. Toyota sales for April totaled 9,912, down 3.4% year over year. The Titan sold 4,033 units in March, up a huge 299% compared with March 2016.

Sales of GM’s midsize Colorado pickup dipped 11% to 9,221 units, and sales of the GMC Canyon fell 21.7% to 2,368 in April. Nissan’s midsize Frontier pickup sold 6,347 units in April, down 15.5% year over year. Toyota sold 17,006 of the company’s midsize Tacoma pickups, down 6.1% compared with April of last year. Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) sold 3,186 units of its all-new Ridgeline midsize pickup, up from one in April of 2016.

In the full-size pickup segment, April sales of 171,532 vehicles from the Detroit Three pencils out to a Ford market share of 41.2% (a month-over-month dip of 6.5 points). GM’s share came in at 23.4% for the Chevy Silverado (up 0.5 points) and 10.1% (up 0.1 points) for the GMC Sierra. Ram’s market share totaled 25.3% (up 0.2 points).