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After a burst of new model interest from car brands over the years, saturation in Australia’s plus-sized pick-up market has seen sales hit a wall.
Sales of large American-sourced pick-up trucks in Australia have dropped, with full-year figures for 2025 revealing a 17.4 per cent decline.
The sales category, defined as Pick-ups over $100,000 in Australia, registered 8763 sales, down on 2024 and 2023 results, which both surpassed 10,000 units.
At the same time, the price bracket below, 4x4 utes under $100,000, grew by 4.7 per cent compared to 2024, recording 212,513 sales.
A neck-and-neck finish saw Ram register 2674 sales, slightly ahead of the Silverado’s 2209 sales.
The Ram 1500 was down 17.4 per cent, and the Chevrolet Silverado dropped 7.5 per cent compared to the previous year.
The third-placed Silverado HD did see a slight boost in sales, up 12.3 per cent to 1654 in 2025.
The Toyota Tundra moved into fourth place with 837 sales, but lacks a full year of sales data for 2024, having only officially gone on sale in late 2024.
The biggest sales slide belonged to the Ford F-150, which shed 67.4 per cent compared to the year prior, recording 792 sales and ranking fifth in the category.
2025 saw the segment face some of the biggest hurdles since it was broken out from Australia’s ‘midsize’ 4x4 ute category.
Segment-straddling models that are larger inside and out, like the GWM Cannon Alpha, LDV Terron 9, and MG U9, but are still priced far below $100,000, have lured buyers who want the added features and space of a US pick-up, but don’t need the uprated towing capacity.
At the same time, Ram’s popular V8 engine was swapped for a turbocharged inline six-cylinder petrol engine in the 1500. Despite higher outputs from the new engine, the change created a perception problem with buyers.
Ford, meanwhile, has faced sales stops and production issues with the F-150, which is locally converted to right-hand drive by first-time converter RMA Automotive Australia, unlike Chevrolet, Ram, and Toyota, which all use Walkinshaw as an engineering resource.
2026 sales could see further instability in the segment, with Ford launching Super Duty versions of the smaller Ranger, with uprated suspension and driveline components, and higher GVM and towing capacities, potentially eating into the 4.5-tonne towing market heavily relied upon by US pick-ups.
Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.
