After finishing 2016 as the fastest growing segment, with a growth rate of 25.5%, things have slowed down considerably, resulting in a growth rate of only 2.4% over the first half of 2017. Moreover, rather than being evenly spread among all models, the remaining growth in the segment is being driven by one model only: the all-new Honda Ridgeline. With the replacement for the Nissan Frontier, the eagerly-awaited Jeep Wrangler pickup and the return of the Ford Ranger still a while away, it is unlikely the segment will see a huge upturn anytime soon.
Highlights for the first half 2017:
Honda Ridgeline- Toyota Tacoma easily holds onto the segment lead, selling almost twice as well as the second-placed model, despite failing to gain new sales in 2017
- After experiencing a few good years following their reintroduction in the US, Chevrolet Colorado and sister model GMC Canyon appear to have hit their sales peak in 2016 – this is especially true of the Canyon, which lost 14.2% in sales relative to the first half of 2016
- Although in absolute terms the sales decline recorded by Nissan Frontier over the course of the first half of 2017 was the steepest, Nissan should count itself lucky in some ways – after losing more than a quarter of sales in Q1, the fall is sales was stemmed to just 5.8% in Q2, and all of this was achieved while the Frontier’s larger brother, the Titan, has been picking up more customers than ever in the class above, providing additional internal competition
- After emerging as the big gainer in Q1’17 things cooled a bit off for the new Honda Ridgeline in the second quarter – yes, it still gained hugely compared to Q2’16, but that is because the model was still being rolled out then; now that it’s been on the market for over a year the momentum appears to have tapered off, so much so that the Ridgeline was the only model bar the segment laggard Canyon to have recorded lower sales in the second quarter of 2017 than in the first
Note: Clicking on the model name opens the sales data page for that model; clicking year in the legend turns the display for that year on/off