Autobytel: Toyota Making Strong Headway Into Truck Market

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An Autobytel consumer survey showed an upward trend of interest in the Toyota Tundra among customers looking to make a full-size truck purchase. According to Autobytel officials, 26 percent of intended truck purchasers planned on buying the new Toyota Tundra Crew Max, a figure higher than the 20 percent who said they would buy a Ford F-150 and the 19 percent who stated they would purchase a Chevrolet Silverado or GMC Sierra. Only 5.5 percent of intended truck purchasers planned to buy a Dodge Ram, the survey added.

Autobytel cited reliability as the primary reason for survey respondents selecting Toyota trucks most over any of the Detroit 3 offerings.

"Despite Toyota's ad campaign promoting the Tundra's braking, towing and overall ruggedness, the automaker's Teflon reputation for reliability may be the decisive factor in buyers' minds," company officials explained.

The survey results demonstrated that the stranglehold on the truck market by the Detroit 3 might be slipping. Autobytel cited data that showed domestics accounted for 91 percent of the 2.2 million full-size trucks sold in the U.S. last year.

Autobytel went on to explain that the survey results further showed how consumers' "loyalty" for domestic trucks is dropping.

"A minority (39 percent) of the self-identified full-size truck purchase intenders polled say they've ‘been and plan to remain loyal to a specific Big 3 brand,'" company officials pointed out.

"That's more than offset by the 12 percent who say they're actually loyal to an import brand, the 21 percent who say they're not loyal to any brand (import or domestic), and the 15 percent who describe themselves as loyal to domestic trucks or brands, but more open to imports for their next purchase," Autobytel continued.

In order to capitalize on this growing interest completely, Autobytel officials explained that one of Toyota's biggest remaining obstacles in the full-size truck market is buyers' desire to secure American-made trucks. They mentioned that Toyota is planning more marketing to overcome this factor by emphasizing that the Tundra is "made in America for Americans."

"(Toyota) may have their work cut out for them (because) 47 percent of the full-size truck buyers polled report that it's important to them to buy an American-built truck with an American brand, and 27 percent say they simply will not drive an import truck on principle," Autobytel officials said.

"Still, 19 percent say that the most important thing to them is that the truck be built in the U.S., regardless of brand, and an additional 24 percent say it's not important to them at all whether a truck was built in America or bears an American brand," Autobytel added.

Regardless of brand, fuel costs remain a significant factor for full-size truck buyers, the survey mentioned. Poll respondents said 32 percent of current truck owners might opt out of the category for their next vehicle purchase. Moreover, Autobytel reported that 35 percent of respondents who plan to make a full-size truck purchase noted that full-efficiency would be one of their top considerations.

All told, a majority of Autobytel's survey respondents (63 percent) said the Tundra will succeed.

Company officials said they gathered data from their Web site through surveys completed from Dec. 22 through Feb. 7.