Mazda announces record sales as industry prepares for tough months

Mazda UK hit its target with record sales of 50,500 vehicles in the financial year ending in March. The UK played a major role in Mazda Europe’s 301,200 sales which were the highest for 15 years.

But the next few months, as dealers wait for all-new Mazda2 and CX-7 to arrive will be “quite an intense time for the industry as a whole,” said Mazda UK managing director Rob Lindley.

To soften the blow – and as a way of saying thank you for the part they played in reaching 50,000 sales – the top 100 dealers, about two-thirds of the total network, recently enjoyed a long weekend in Morocco with their partners.

“We hit the numbers we needed to in a tough retail market and in March, the MX-5 had its best ever month,” said Lindley. Sales were 1,973 for the MX-5 including soft top and roadster coupe. Mazda6 sales were also buoyant at 2,944 – a small increase of one per cent over March ’06 – despite being one of the older models in the current range.

Dealers had a preview of Mazda2 and the Mazda CX-7 crossover Sports Utility vehicle in Germany earlier this month at a European Mazda Dealer event. And Lindley is looking for these two new models to boost sales for the financial year to March 2008 by 3,500.

“Our forecast is that we will hit 53,700 in the 2007 fiscal year. We have a lot of new product arriving but it will be in the second half of the year,” said Lindley.

Despite the tough UK conditions, March was Mazda’s second best ever month with 9,877 sales.

“Overall I am satisfied in what was clearly a pretty tough challenge for the team. Personally I think it will continue to be tough for all retailers in the year ahead as consumer confidence generally is down in the UK at the moment.

"Having said that our strong dealer network combined with the latest sports models - the Mazda3 MPS hot hatch along with the more powerful 2.0-litre 143ps Mazda3 diesel and a new special edition for MX-5 in May – will mean sales momentum continues from spring into summer," said Lindley.

In Europe, Mazda recorded 301,200 sales with four other countries, in addition to the UK, achieving record sales – Russia (35,500), Spain (18,700), France (15,000) and Portugal (4,350).