Report: Chevy Silverado Eroding Ford F-150 Market Share

2015 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 High Country (Credit: Chevrolet )

The fight for market share between the Chevy Silverado and Ford F-150 has taken a new twist. With the February’s sales figures in, different publications like the Motley Fool are declaring the Silverado not only the champion of the month, but saying it’s delivered a crippling blow to Ford.

Sales of the Silverado grew by 24 percent in February. GM says all of its truck models, which include pickups along with vans and SUVs, increased by 36 percent. While those numbers are great, that doesn’t necessarily mean they came at Ford’s expense.

The claim is that Chevy has swooped in and scooped up truck shoppers while Ford is sitting dead in the water. Two factories are supposed to be rolling out the all-new F-150, but only one is churning them out right now. The second one, located in the Kansas City area, is finishing its upgrades and should start assembling the pickup in the latter part of March.

In the past GM has turned to huge incentives to move product, which presents some bad consequences in the long run. The good news is that the automaker seems to have truly turned over a new leaf and isn’t stooping to such practices. Instead, it’s gaining sales by appealing to consumers with only the product, at least as much as the competition.

Meanwhile, getting a 2015 Ford F-150 can be a little tricky, thanks to a constrained product supply. As a result, Ford reported that in February only 21 percent of F-150 sales were 2015 models. Dealers have been unloading 2014 models like crazy, presumably to keep up sales volumes and make room for the wave of new pickups that hopefully will be coming in a few short weeks.

Some people are saying that the declaration that Chevy has bested Ford is a little premature. After all, everyone has a soft month or two. Once Ford gets production up and running at the second truck factory, things could change quickly.

What about Ram pickups? In February the brand only saw a 7 percent gain. I’ll just leave it at that.