How Ford F-150 Continues Its Sales Dominance

It’s no secret that Ford has enjoyed decades of financial dominance in the pickup truck segment thanks to the incredibly popular Ford F-150. While the pickup truck segment continues to grow and is by far the most competitive and most profitable segment in the automotive industry, Ford is showing no sign of relinquishing the title of America’s best-selling pickup truck.

Additionally, as Ford abandons their car line to produce more SUVs, crossovers and trucks, that move is proving to be a financially sound one as Ford saw large increases in SUVs and crossovers too.

How Many Pickup Trucks Did Ford Sell in 2019?

Ford sold nearly 900,000 F-150s in the 2019 model year. The 896,526 units was actually slightly down from the 2018 model year by 1.4%. However, the Ranger sold 89,571 units and heavy trucks saw an increase in sales of 36.5%. One of the most surprising increases was a 58.1% increase on sales of the Ford Expedition. Conversely, sales of the Ford Explorer fell 26.1%.

This shows a consumer push toward larger vehicles. With the addition of the Ranger sales numbers, Ford saw their best sales year for trucks since 2005 with nearly one million pickup trucks sold.

Mark LeNeve, Ford vice president, U.S. Marketing, Sales and Service said, “America’s best-selling brand for the past decade is on a roll. F-Series celebrates 43 years as the country’s favorite truck and 38 years as its overall vehicle.”

Ford Enjoys Commercial Truck and Van Success Too
For the commercial side of things, Ford saw an increase in the commercial trucks sales by 10.1%. Likewise the Ford Transit achieved its best sales performance since 2014. The Ford Transit, which was introduced in 2014 is now America’s best-selling commercial van. In some capacity, Ford has produced the most popular commercial van for 41 straight years.

Rest of Ford Truck Platform Seeing Sales Increase
As noted, the Ford Expedition had its best sales year in more than a decade. And while the Explorer was down, partially due to some recall issues and availability issues as a result, the Explorer sales bounced back in the fourth quarter with a 52.3 increase from the third quarter.

Overall, Explorer units were down year over year. However, with a redesigned 2020 Explorer coming, Ford expects the fourth quarter sales trend to continue.

Jimmy Dinsmore has been an automotive journalist for more than a decade and been a writer since the high school. His Driver’s Side column features new car reviews and runs in several newspapers throughout the country. He is also co-author of the book “Mustang by Design” and “Ford Trucks: A Unique Look at the Technical History of America’s Most Popular Truck”. Also, Jimmy works in the social media marketing world for a Canadian automotive training aid manufacturing company. Follow Jimmy on Facebook, Twitter, at his special Ford F-150 coverage on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can read the most of Jimmy's stories by searching Torque News Ford for daily Ford vehicle report.