Mazda's US sales fall

[bigpoppanils]

despite a revamping of its US product line, Mazda's sales in its 2002 fiscal year (ending in March 2003) fell over 4% to 258,000 cars, despite strong sales of the Protoge MP5 and the introductions of the RX-8 and the 6 sedan. To put that sales figure in perspective, Toyota sold close to 400,000 Camry's last year.

Sales of the Mazda 6 have been very dissapointing. Mazda plans to idle production of the car for a week in may and a week in June in order to cut inventories.

[cintron]

that's a shame. Mazda puts together some of the purest sports cars and definitely knows their stuff when it comes to performance. the Mazda 6 is a very good presentation of a sporty daily driver, but the classic Mazda 626 and Millenia have always been known as 2nd and 3rd rate boring passenger sedans - a fact that surely must be impacting current sales.

Much like Subaru's turnaround from shabby import automaker to presigious manufacturer, things aren't going to get brighter for Mazda overnight. If they keep procuring well-thought-out designs, maintain good reliability and value, then i think the average consumer may come to appreciate what they have to bring to the table. It will take some time but i think Mazda has the capability to come full circle. Their lineup seems to be more well-rounded than in past years.

The RX7 - one of the best sports cars ever made, was a sales and maintenence nightmare, costing Mazda dearly on warranty claims. Their other offerings - namely the MPV, 626 and Millenia were incredibly mundane, boring and plauged with small glitches and poor build quality over time.

These days it seems they're trying to promote a higher quality lineup and i wish em luck... but they have to put in their dues before people will consider them among the other top manufacturers [Nissan, Honda, Toyota] when shopping for a new car.

I hope that they'll revise the Mazdaspeed protege and work closer with MazdaSpeed in future product releases. It would be outstanding if the Protege could become an AWD turbocharged platform, or even just a RWD one. It's very capable as a FWD platform, but limited sales #'s and all the hyped up tuner parts pre-installed are what make it for a niche market, and less for the masses as Subaru's WRX is.