Edmunds.com Analysis: At Last, Toyota Makes Inroads with Tundra
May 07, 2007

The new Toyota Tundra is beginning to chip away at the loyalty of domestic truck owners.

Buyers of domestic full-size trucks, the most brand loyal in the industry, are starting to consider Toyota’s new Tundra, considered the Japanese automaker’s first credible contender against the Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge pickups.

“Now that Toyota has its full lineup of trucks available with all powertrains, domestic buyers are beginning to take notice,” said Alex Rosten, Edmunds.com’s manager of pricing and market analysis.

Edmunds.com’s analysis of truck loyalty figures, based on April sales, shows that since the new Tundra went on sale in February:

· Tundra’s share of domestic truck trades increased 5 percentage points, from 29.4 percent to 34.4 percent;

· large truck trade-ins from all brands for a Tundra increased 16.5 points from March to April, returning to February’s high level of 57 percent;

· Tundra’s conquest of all trucks, not just full-size pickups, from other manufacturers rose 5.6 points.

At the same time, loyalty rates for all other trucks but one declined in April. Only Dodge Ram improved its overall conquest rate.

Initially, Toyota was making no inroads with loyal owners of Chevrolet and Ford trucks, in particular and was drawing sales largely from Toyota loyalists, particularly current Tundra owners, rather than stealing sales from competitors. However, stealing sales from domestics is the only way Toyota can achieve its goal of selling 200,000 Tundras a year.

Even though Tundra made gains against the domestics, its April sales of 14,200 still were not enough to achieve its annual sales goal. However, despite heavy incentives, the total pickup truck market in April was slow, blamed largely on the housing slump.

Tundra was helped by the fact that its most popular version, the CrewMax, and its 5.7-liter engine are now in the mix. Toyota launched the Tundra in February without either of those being immediately available. The CrewMax is selling with no incentives while the other models have substantial ones.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:55 AM under Analysis , Toyota | Comments (4) | digg this | Seed Newsvine