Cars and Drivers

Ford F-Series Sales Drop 7%, Still Dominates Pickup Market

Paul Ausick

Published: November 1, 2018 12:00 pm

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 3:31 pm

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) sold 70,438 F-Series pickups in October, topping sales of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) Ram pickups of 49,186 units. For the first 10 months of 2018, Ford has sold 749,456 F-Series pickups to Ram’s total of 471,203. General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), which no longer reports monthly sales results, reported three-quarter total sales of 424,403 Chevy Silverado pickups and 152,242 GMC Sierra pickups, for a total of 576,645 units.

Ford F-Series pickup sales are 2% higher year over year for the first 10 months of the year, compared to a sales gain of 1% for Ram over the same period.

Other full-size pickups on offer in the United States are the Tundra from Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) and the Nissan Titan. Toyota Tundra sales for October totaled 9,571. Toyota has not released more detailed data yet.

Nissan reported October Titan sales of 4,114 units, absolutely flat year over year. For the first 10 months of 2018, Titan sales totaled 41,953, an increase of 5.8% over the same period in 2017.

Toyota reported that October sales of midsize Tacoma pickups rose 29.9% year over year.

Nissan’s midsize Frontier pickup sold 6,302 units in October, a rise of 1.3% year over year. Sales for the first 10 months of 2018 rose 7.2% to 65,876 units.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) sold 2,501 midsize Ridgeline pickups in the month, down by 7.7% year over year. Honda’s Ridgeline sales of 25,305 units in the first 10 months of 2018 are down 13.6% year over year.

GM’s midsize Chevy Colorado sold 104,838 units through the first nine months of the year, and the GMC Canyon sold 25,273 units. Ford is expected to have its new 2019 Ranger midsize pickup to dealers before the end of this year.

At the end of the first three quarters of the year, Ford had captured 40.9% of pickup sales among the Detroit Three. GM Silverado sales took 26.3% of sales, Sierra nabbed 9.4% and Ram took 23.3%.

In 2017, Ford’s share of the full-size pickup market came in at 39.7%, while Chevrolet Silverado nabbed 26.0%, GMC Sierra took 9.6% and Ram rang up 24.7%.