The Small Pick-up segment has increased 48% in 2015 to 356,886 sales as three out of four models are less than 18 months old. In contrast, the fourth one is already 11 years old, and loses 15% of its volume. The new generation Nissan Frontier has already been launched in the rest of the world, but a US version of that model is still undecided, just like a Mercedes-Benz version of that model, which isn’t due until 2020 anyways. The Toyota Tacoma is the long-standing leader of the segment and still takes more than half of all small pick-up truck sales in the United States, although that’s down from a whopping 64% in 2014. The Tacoma’s 179,562 sales are just enough to break its 2006 sales record 178,351 units.
The new Chevrolet Colorado is in 2nd place with almost a quarter of the segment, which means it sells less than half the volume of the little Toyota. Nonetheless, the Colorado enjoys its highest volume since 2006 when the previous model sold over 100,000 units. The Frontier is kicked down into third place, but as you can read in the January 2016 US sales analysis, it manages to surprisingly outsell the Colorado again in the first month of 2016. The GMC Canyon is less than 5,000 units short of its sales record in 2005, so it may celebrate in 2016, even though it may still finish dead last of the small pick-up trucks.
Honda is launching the second generation Ridgeline this year, bringing a Feminine Touch to the segment with its front-wheel drive layout and unibody strucure. The renewed energy this segment has gotten from these fresh products has encouraged Ford to reconsider its decision to withdraw the Ranger from the US market in 2012, especially now that the new model is selling well in the rest of the world. They’re planning to build it starting in 2017 in the US to avoid the famous “chicken tax” on the import of new trucks, and even the return of the Ford Bronco SUV is likely.
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