After Ford set an annual Canadian F-Series sales record in 2012, broke that record in 2013 and then set yet another record in 2014, we knew matching that pace in 2015 would be difficult. The late-2014 launch of a new aluminum-intensive Ford F-150, the core model in the F-Series range, forced the manufacturer and its dealers into a difficult position: determining future demand and inventory levels for an all-new truck while maintaining sales momentum of the old truck.
As a result, overall F-Series sales slid six percent in Canada in calendar year 2015, even as pickup truck sales grew five percent. Ford’s market share in the truck sector slid from 38 percent in 2014 to 34 percent last year.
But Ford Canada’s pickup truck decline was short-lived. Through the first-third of 2016, Ford once again owns 38 percent of the Canadian pickup truck market. Year-over-year, January-April sales of the F-Series jumped 27 percent, a gain of nearly 10,000 sales. And after setting an all-time monthly Canadian record with 13,385 F-Series sales in March, F-Series sales climbed four percent higher to a new record of 13,957 sales in April.
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At this stage of 2015, the F-Series led the next-best-selling vehicle in Canada, Ram’s P/U line, by 7,596 units. It was, by any standard, a massive gap, but it was much tighter than we’ve come to expect from Ford Canada’s truck dominance. South of the border, General Motors’ full-size truck twins, the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado, combine to routinely challenge the F-Series for top-selling truck honours. In fact, 2015 marked the first year since 2009 in which the GM twins outsold the F-Series in America.
In 2016, however, Ford is reasserting its dominance. The F-Series now leads the Ram P/U, still Canada’s second-best-selling vehicle line, by nearly 15,000 units. (GM’s twins combined in the first half to narrowly outsell the Ram.) At the current pace, the F-Series will end 2016 as Canada’s best-selling vehicle for an eighth consecutive year with a 50,000-unit margin of victory.
Already, the F-Series has generated more sales in 2016 than most auto brands will all year. Only three auto brands (Ford excluded, obviously) have outsold the F-Series so far in 2016: Toyota, Honda, and Chevrolet, and the latter by only 139 units.
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In April, specifically, the best month in the Canadian auto industry’s history, seven out of every 100 new vehicles sold was a Ford pickup truck. Some 46 percent of the Ford Motor Company’s sales were F-Series-derived, 47 percent of Ford brand sales, and 57 percent of Ford’s light truck volume. For every six full-size trucks sold by Ram, GMC, Chevrolet, Toyota, and Nissan, Ford sold four F-Series pickups.
It’s a dominant vehicle, now more than ever. This is true in Ford’s home market, but it’s especially true in Canada, where pickup trucks form a larger part of the industry’s volume, where full-size trucks form a larger part of the pickup sector, and where the F-Series will end 2016 as Canada’s best-selling line of trucks for a 51st consecutive year.
With the F-Series serving as the primary bright spot, Ford’s Canadian sales are up 17 percent this year, a rate of expansion that dwarfs the industry’s impressive eight-percent leap. The bad news? As Ford prepared to launch a facelifted Escape for model year 2017 (pictured above) sales of the Escape – Canada’s perennial best-selling SUV/crossover – slid seven percent in the first four months of 2016. Ford’s passenger cars, meanwhile, tumbled eight percent, largely due to losses from the Fusion and Focus, Ford’s two best-selling cars.
Proving yet again that the F-Series is a hugely dominant product for Canada’s best-selling brand, the Blue Oval pickup truck outsells Ford’s cars and the Escape by nearly two-to-one.
