The segment grows slowly thanks to a halt in the small vans sales decline
Overall sales of Commercial Vans in the US recovered a bit in the third quarter, with sales of large vans growing by 2%, and sales of small vans not changing much compared to Q3’16. This is a big improvement especially for the latter subsegment, which saw double-digit declines in the first two quarters. Still, because of this decline earlier in the year the overall segment is down 2% on where it was this time last year, with large vans up 1% and small vans down 13% YTD.
Highlights for Q3 2017:
- Ford will not be happy about its models’ performance so far this year – both the Transit, which leads the large vans subsegment, and the Transit Connect, which leads the small vans subsegment, saw their sales fall by double-digits once again in the third quarter, making them the models with the biggest sales drop
- The old-fashioned large vans continue to enjoy a renaissance, with Chevrolet Express, Ford E-series, and in particular GMC Savana (up an incredible 207% in Q3’17) growing in the third quarter
- Other than GMC’s golden oldie, the standout performances in Q3’17 came from Chevrolet City Express, whose sales doubled compared to this time last year, and from the Mercedes-Benz Metris, which finally saw some good growth with sales up 33% in the third quarter
- Finally, the continued growth of the Ram ProMaster bares pointing out, as the Fiat-sourced model has established itself as the clear no. 2 among the modern large vans in 2017, putting clear air between itself and FCA’s erstwhile North American offering, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter (which until 2010 it sold as the Ram Sprinter)