If there’s one thing Americans love, it’s full-size pickup trucks. Compact crossovers are incredibly popular, sure, but the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado are still the top dogs in the U.S. Both Nissan and Toyota have tried to steal some of those big truck sales but have been largely unsuccessful. Until recently, that is. As a report from S&P Global shows, ever since Toyota introduced the redesigned Tundra, it’s sold well enough that its market share actually passed Ram.
For years, the Tundra’s share of the full-size, half-ton truck market had slowly been shrinking, slipping from 9.3 percent in 2014 to 6.5 percent in 2021. Considering Toyota last redesigned the Tundra for the 2007 model year, it isn’t all that surprising that sales would taper off over the years or that its last year on-sale would be its worst since customers knew a redesigned truck was coming. Nor is it surprising that sales would increase after its first redesign in 15 years. Still, Toyota taking 15.3 percent of the market in April 2024 while Ram drops into the fifth spot is a big deal.
It’s not just that more people are buying Tundras, either. More current truck owners are trading in competitors to get their hands on a new Tundra. For most of 2021, Toyota’s conquest-to-defection ratio was less than 1.0, indicating that more people were getting rid of their Tundras for other trucks than were doing the opposite. Fast forward to the first quarter of 2024, however, and the ratio is solidly in Toyota’s favor across the board, with the most conquests coming from Ram owners.
Toyota is also winning when it comes to monthly payments. The average payment on a new Tundra loan reached $1,014 in March 2024, beating not just Ram but every other full-size half-ton pickup truck on the market. Unfortunately, S&P Global doesn’t have data for Q2 yet, so we don’t know if the payment trend has continued, but either way, it’s clear Toyota has a winner on its hands with Tundra.