The third quarter sales results are now in for 2018 and Ram, Nissan and Toyota are all big winners while Chevy and GMC have some work to do.
Before we get into the details, the chart below is based on published numbers from manufactures and compared to numbers gathered from the previous year. Since early this year, GM decided to report quarterly sales figures instead of monthly leading to changes with how we present the information. Also, quarter 3 combines July, August and September sales results.
| Pickup Sales Breakdown Q3 | Sales | vs. 2017 | +/- | YTD |
| Full-Size Pickup Sales | ||||
| Ford F-Series | 227,880 | 228,776 | 0.04% | 679,018 |
| Chevrolet Silverado | 142,044 | 155,650 | -8.8% | 424,403 |
| Ram Truck | 133,329 | 124,458 | 7.1% | 375,583 |
| GMC Sierra | 51,368 | 55,323 | -7.2% | 152,242 |
| Toyota Tundra | 31,990 | 32,025 | -0.02% | 87,782 |
| Nissan Titans | 14,545 | 11,085 | 31.2% | 37,839 |
| Mid-Size Pickup Sales | ||||
| Toyota Tacoma | 67,643 | 52,824 | 28% | 183,909 |
| Chevrolet Colorado | 34,963 | 32,733 | 6.8% | 104,838 |
| Nissan Frontier | 17,873 | 17,395 | 2.7% | 59,574 |
| GMC Canyon | 8,425 | 8,381 | .05% | 25,273 |
| Honda Ridgeline | 7,816 | 7.980 | -2.1% | 22,804 |
With that said, you can see Ford is mostly flat which is a positive in the face of stiff new competition from Ram and Chevy/GMC.
Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are both struggling, but with new pickups just hitting dealer lots it should come back strong.
Ram continues to post big gains largely due to a new pickup which has been hitting dealer lots all summer long.
The Toyota Tundra continues to sell at a consistent rate even though it is now the oldest half-ton pickup on the market.
Finally, Nissan Titans, both the XD and non-XD half-ton, saw a big jump percentage wise, but not a huge jump in units sold.
On the mid-size pickup side, the Toyota Tacoma continues to dominate the segment with the sales increase largely attributed to more inventory due to the Baja, Mexico plant coming on line.
The Chevy Colorado also saw a nice gain with the new ZR2 hitting the dealer lots.
Meanwhile, the oldest mid-size pickup, the Nissan Frontier, saw a nice sales bump due to being the cheapest pickup on this list.
Finally, the GMC Canyon was mostly flat along with the Honda Ridgeline. Not a lot of energy being spent on either of those pickups.
The 4th Quarter should bring with it more significant results with the new Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra having three months of sales reporting. It will be interesting to see how consumers respond to those new pickups.
