Why Isn't the Chevrolet Equinox Helping GM's Market Share?
Last month, sales of the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox crossover were up a healthy 70.4 percent, with 11,658 customers taking one home, which resulted in the vehicle claiming the 18th spot on the list of top 20 sellers for September. Looking at year-to-date numbers through the first three quarters of 2010, sales are up even a bit more, reaching a 76.9 percent increase that left the vehicle less than a thousand customers away from reaching the 100,000-units mark. And those 99,055 sales were again good enough to keep the Chevy in 18th place for the year. There were also four other GM products'”the Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Malibu, Chevrolet Impala and GMC Sierra'”up among the top 20. Yet despite positive results from the Chevy Equinox and friends, GM has lost market share both on a year-over-year basis (down 2.8 points compared to September 2009) and in terms of year-to-date performance (down .6 points through the first three quarters of 2010 as compared to the same period in 2009).
GM Unable to Increase Truck Share
The conundrum only deepens when you take a broader view of the market. The market mix between cars and trucks (including SUVs, crossovers and minivans) has unsurprisingly changed from 53.9 percent cars/46.1 percent non-cars in September of 2009 to 49.5 percent cars/50.5 percent non-cars last month, a split that has widened in recent months as fuel prices remain below $3.00 per gallon.
Now, I wasn't alone in believing this trend would be to the General's favor, based on the company's steadily improving crossover sales. In addition to the Equinox, GM also offers the Cadillac SRX, with sales up 318.8 percent through September; Buick Enclave, up 27.6 percent for the same period; and the GMC Terrain continuing a strong sophomore year. Yet despite these winners, GM's market share in the truck segments was flat when looking at last month vs. September 2009 and has increased .7 of a point on a year-to-date basis.
Ford's truck numbers? Up 1.1 points YTD and 1.5 points in September. Those numbers may look small, but Ford's truck market share has increased twice as much through the first three quarters of 2010 as GM's has. And Chrysler, thanks to the introduction of the all-new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and resurgent interest in the Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan, saw its portion of the truck market rise 1.5 points last month as well.
The other big winner on the truck side was a shocker: Kia was the only other automaker to notch a 1 point truck-share gain in September, expanding its piece of the pie from .7 percent of the market to 1.7 percent.
Among the rest of the major players, Toyota's share of the September truck market moved from 6.3 to 6.6 points, Honda's share went from 4.1 to 4.6 points, Nissan was unchanged, and Hyundai, in another surprise, saw its market slice shrink from 1.2 to .8 percent on the truck side.
Nissan, Toyota Capturing
More SUV Sales
So, GM's crossovers are no doubt having some strong sales years, yet the automaker's share of the non-car half of the market is slipping. To some extent, this reflects the fact that the General doesn't offer a minivan with which to directly compete against products like the Chrysler Group duo, the new Honda Odyssey and 2011 Toyota Sienna. But there's another problem, too.
While many observers thought GM's body-on-frame SUVs would see some increased sales as most of the industry, including Ford and Chrysler, put more resources into unibody vehicles like the new Ford Explorer and redesigned Dodge Durango, the September sales numbers tell a far different story. Except for the Cadillac Escalade ESV, which accounted for all of 824 sales last month, all of GM's body-on-frame SUVS'”Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Suburban, Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and GMC Yukon XL'”saw sales fall by at least 25 percent last month.
Meanwhile, the Nissan Xterra, Nissan Pathfinder and Nissan Armada were up 12, 23 and 70 percent in September. The Toyota 4Runner saw a 437.1 percent sales jump and the Toyota FJ Cruiser moved ahead 244.8 percent. Even the Toyota Sequoia saw a 5 percent sales bump in the previous month.
The General running into trouble by focusing too much on fuel-efficient cars like the Chevrolet Cruze and not enough on big trucks? Who'd have thunk it.