Two of the most popular trucks on the American car market right now are the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra. While they’re both good and popular trucks, the Ford F-150 is a tough competitor that has a lot of fans, and it’s also the best-selling car on the market. Overall 2022 was a tough year for the car market though, and the GMC Sierra and the Chevy Silverado ended up winning by not losing.

The Ford F-150 is still the king, but it took a big hit in 2022

Due to the supply chain issues that continue to rock the world, 2022 was a bad year in terms of sales for most automakers. Those issues hit every segment, and they didn’t discriminate between popular and unpopular models. According to GM Authority, the Ford F-Series continued to dominate the truck segment, as Ford sold about 654,000 units in 2022.

That made the Ford truck the best-selling car overall, but it also represented a massive drop in sales from the year prior. In 2021, Ford sold 726,000 units of the truck. This means that Ford sold about 72,000 units fewer year-over-year. That’s a 10% drop in sales year-over-year, and it’s a worse drop than the segment average of 7.5%. 

The Ram 1500, which is another popular truck, saw an even bigger drop in sales. In 2021, Ram sold about 569,000 units of the truck, but in 2022, it only sold 468,000 units. That’s a drop of over 100,000 units, or about 17.8%. In fact, Ram’s drop in sales was so big that it allowed General Motors’ trucks to catch up.

The GMC Sierra and the Chevy Silverado survived 2022 with few losses

The Chevy Silverado finished 2021 in third place, as Chevy only sold about 530,000 units of the truck. Like other automakers, Chevy was affected by supply chain issues, and those problems caused Chevy to sell fewer trucks.

That being said, in 2022, Chevy sold just over 523,000 units of the Silverado, which is a 6,000 unit decline from the year prior, or a drop of only 1.2%. This small loss allowed the Silverado to become the second best-selling truck.

The GMC Sierra, which is almost identical to the Silverado, also saw a small drop in sales. In 2021, GMC sold about 249,000 units, while in 2022, the automaker sold just over 241,000 units. That’s a drop of about 8,000 units, or a roughly 3% decline. One of the main reasons why GM had such small drops in sales was because the automaker actually ramped up sales in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Both Ford and Ram continued bleeding sales in the fourth quarter of the year, with Ford selling 2% fewer units compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, and Ram selling about 22% fewer units. In comparison, Chevy sold 23% better, while GMC sold about 25% better. 

How GMC and Chevy won by not losing

The main reason why GM’s companies were able to not lose so much in sales in 2022 just comes down to how the automakers handled the supply chain issues. Sales can’t happen if cars aren’t on the lot, and availability was a big issue that GM was facing earlier in the supply chain crisis. 

By addressing those issues, GM has been able to keep production going, which meant that car shoppers could also keep buying the trucks they wanted. Toyota was the only other major truck automaker that was able to do something similar in 2022. The Toyota Tundra saw a 27% increase in sales year-over-year, and its fourth-quarter sales grew by a massive 75% as well.