Every single model loses sales, as the segment shrinks by almost 20%
Overall sales of Commercial Vans in the US fell again in the second quarter of 2017, albeit at a slower pace than in the first quarter, resulting in a cumulative drop in sales of 3.2% YTD. As I mentioned earlier, it seems that customers seem to be slowly moving away from commercial vans to pickups, at least to the extent that the latter are used for commercial purposes. Confirming this, the decline is concentrated in the small commercial van segment, which has lost 17.9% of its volume so far this year, while the large commercial vans segment, for which pickups are no substitute, seems largely unaffected.
Highlights for the first half of 2017:
- Every single model lost sales in the first half of 2017 relative to 2016, but none more so than Ford Transit Connect, whose sales fell by over a quarter – this is a situation not dissimilar to that in the large commercial vans segment, where the Ford Transit, which began the recent growth in sales in the segment a few years ago, now seems to be suffering more than any of its competitors
- Nissan NV200 lost the fewest sales in the whole segment, halving the difference to the segment-leading Transit Connect, while also outperforming (underperforming less?) its twin, the Chevrolet City Express
- In third place is the Ram ProMaster City, losing sales at a pace between that of the twins, but losing pace slightly relative to the second-placed Nissan