Cars and Drivers

Ford Tops September Pickup Sales, but Ram Gains Market Share

Paul Ausick

Published: October 3, 2017 11:25 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 7:34 am

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold a whopping 82,302 F-Series pickups in September, topping sales of General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Silverado by 26,967 units. Adding in sales of the GMC Sierra, Ford outsold GM in the pickup wars by 8,861 units.

Ford F-Series pickup sales rose 24.1% year over year in September, compared with an increase of 21.7% in Silverado sales and a rise of 0.2% in Sierra sales.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.’s (NYSE: FCAU) Ram pickup sales fell 1% year over year to 47,142 units sold in the month, but it was the only one of the Detroit Three to post a month-over-month market share gain in September.

Other full-size pickups on offer in the United States are the Tundra from Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and the Nissan Titan. Tundra sales for September totaled 11,159, up 17.4% year over year. The Titan sold 3,773 units in September, up 51.2% compared with September 2016.

Sales of GM’s midsize Colorado pickup rose 8.6% to 11,271 units, and sales of the GMC Canyon fell 0.9% to 2,922 in September. Nissan’s midsize Frontier pickup sold 5,111 units in September, down 32.7% year over year. Toyota sold 18,058 of the company’s midsize Tacoma pickups, up 14.9% compared with September of last year. Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) sold 2,784 units of its Ridgeline midsize pickup, down 16.1% from 3,318 units in September of 2016.

In the full-size pickup segment, September sales of 202,786 vehicles from the Detroit Three pencils out to a Ford market share of 40.6% (a month-over-month decrease of 0.2 points). GM’s share came in at 27.2% for the Chevy Silverado (down 1.6 points) and 8.9% (down 0.2 points) for the GMC Sierra. Ram’s market share totaled 23.2% (up 3.3 points).

Combined, the Detroit Three sold about 13,800 more full-size pickups last month than they did in August 2016.