Chevrolet Closes Out 2017 On a High Note
General Motors smashes analyst predictions and leaves Dodge in the dust after a strong December.
2017 was, all-in-all, a solid year for General Motors. But it didn’t look that way just a month ago. By the end of November, the iconic brand was suffering from the same overall slump as its competitors. Folks just simply weren’t buying new cars and trucks at the same rapid rate as the year before. But December brought strong winds of change as Chevy trucks closed out the year with a huge bang.
Overall deliveries of GMC and Chevy trucks topped 100,000 units after entering the month 10,000 down over the previous year. The strong finish helped GM achieve better than expected sales, along with record average transaction pricing for the year. The bulk of this improvement can be attributed to the Silverado, which experienced a 24.7% surge in the month of December. Overall, GM truck models accounted for a 17.8% surge over 2016, despite one less selling day this year.
Those strong truck sales also allowed GM to smash analyst expectations, which ranged from a 5.8% to 7.9% decline in deliveries. Instead, they slipped just 3.3%. And the brand had already set a personal record in November with average transaction prices exceeding $37,000 for the first time. But they wasted no time beating that with an ATP surpassing $38,000 in December.
But that wasn’t even the best news. After surging Dodge Ram sales threatened the Chevy Silverado’s spot as the number two selling model in America, December saw Chevy’s cash cow flip the script. The Silverado managed to widen the gap, closing out the year with 585,864 units sold versus 500,723 for the Ram.
Chevy trucks weren’t the only thing selling like hotcakes, of course. The recently refreshed Equinox SUV is a hit among consumers as well, posting a 20.6% increase in December and 19.9% jump for the year. All of that helped Chevy close out the year with a modest 1.5% decrease in sales, far better than much of the competition. And that bodes extremely well as we look forward to 2018 and the arrival of the all-new Silverado!
