Ford Pickup Sales In China Could Expand Significantly In Five Years

November 1, 2021 6:51 am

Pickup trucks weren’t always popular in China, but that was largely due to the fact that the government restricted them in highly populated areas like cities, relegating pickups to rural areas. However, as Ford Authority reported way back in July of 2016, China decided to start relaxing and removing restrictions on trucks in cities, which prompted FoMoCo to begin selling the Ford Ranger and Ford F-150 – including the higher-trim Limited and off-road-focused F-150 Raptor – in that market. Now, over five years later, it seems that our predicted Ford pickup sales boom in China is coming to fruition, according to a new report from Automotive News.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers predicts that overall pickup sales in China will double their current levels, reaching 840,000 units by 2025 and as many as 1.67 million units by 2030. That’s a massive increase from previous years, which included sales of 304,000 in 2015 and 414,000 in 2020. By the end of September, 402,000 Chinese buyers had purchased pickups, which is already an 18 percent increase over last year.

These predictions are based on the assumption that the Chinese government will continue to ease restrictions on pickups, however. Back in 2000, a number of Chinese provinces began to ban pickups in heavily-populated urban areas in an effort to reduce pollution and cut down on traffic, but even today, trucks are largely relegated to rural areas, where they’re used mostly as utility vehicles.

A total of 38 percent of Chinese cities still restrict the use of pickups, which account for half of the country’s population and 60 percent of its economy, so there is certainly tremendous room for growth in terms of Ford pickup sales. The drive to ease restrictions stemmed from a desire to boost China’s slowing economy, and pickups have since become highly desirable among consumers, not to mention a major profit driver for automakers in the country.

We’ll have more on the pickup truck market in China soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.