Ford F-Series Leads as March Pickup Sales Soar

Cars and Drivers

Published: April 3, 2018 11:55 am

Last Updated: April 27, 2020 9:36 pm

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 87,011 F-Series pickups in March, topping sales of General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Silverado by 34,464 units. Even adding in sales of the GMC Sierra, Ford outsold GM in the monthly pickup wars by more than 17,000 units.

Ford F-Series pickup sales rose 7% year over year in March, compared with an increase of 23.9% in Silverado sales and a drop of 7.5% in Sierra sales.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V.’s (NYSE: FCAU) Ram pickup sales dropped 13% year over year to 44,878 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. Tundra sales for March totaled 10,697, up 14.3% year over year. Nissan reported March Titan sales of 4,912 units, down 11.3% year over year.

Sales of GM’s midsize Chevy Colorado pickup rose 51.9% to 12,798 units, and sales of the GMC Canyon increased by 9.4% to 2,723 in March. Toyota sold 20,250 of its midsize Tacoma pickups, up 21.1% compared with March of last year.

Nissan’s midsize Frontier pickup sold 8,932 units in March, a jump of 28.1% year over year. Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) sold 2,690 midsize Ridgeline pickups in the month, down by 31.3% year over year.

Strong sales from Toyota and Nissan followed on the introduction of new versions of their trucks this year. In the midsize class, the new models continue beating up on the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon.

Ford’s 2018 F-Series is new and has beaten both GM and FCA to market with a new truck. The 2019 Ram pickup has begun arriving in dealer showrooms, and the 2019 GM trucks are due by the end of the year. Ford is expected to have its new 2019 Ranger midsize pickup to dealers late this year or early next, as well.

In the full-size pickup segment, March sales of 201,518 vehicles from the Detroit Three pencils out to a Ford market share of 43.2% (a month-over-month decrease of 0.3 percentage points). GM’s share came in at 26.1% for the Chevy Silverado (down 0.8 points) and 8.5% (up 0.1 points) for the GMC Sierra. Ram’s market share totaled 22.3% (up 1.1 points).

In 2017, Ford’s share of the full-size pickup market came in at 39.7%, while Silverado nabbed 26%, Sierra took 9.6%, and Ram rang up 24.7%.

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