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Mazda to go upmarket
Stand by for higher prices from Mazda, but don't hold your breath for another EunosIncoming Mazda chairman Seita Kanai revealed his desire to take the Japanese brand more upmarket – at least in terms of pricing – but has ruled out the resurrection of a separate premium brand to compete with Lexus and Infiniti.
Kanai said in Hiroshima this week that as its models became more premium, Mazda would eventually charge more for them.
"A direction we're taking is to offer a premium sort of product and charge a premium sort of price," he said. "That is something we'd like to do sometime in the future.
"At Mazda what we are doing is develop Mazda-brand vehicles that are very close to premium... The prices may be gradually creeping up to the premium brands eventually, but that is something we would like to do."
However, he admits the prices that Mazda will be able to charge will ultimately be decided by consumers.
"Mazda cannot decide if our products are premium enough," he said. "That's something that our customers will decide."
Mazda's top-selling model both globally and in Australia, the Mazda3, joined the majority of mainstream small cars with a sub-$20,000 entry price late last year.
However, the $19,990 sticker was a run-out price only, in the lead-up to this year's third-generation model, the base price of which is more expensive than most rivals at $20,490. Flagship Mazda3 Astina models now also cost more than the cheapest Mercedes cars at almost $40,000.
Despite this, the Mazda3 continues to be Australia's top-selling new vehicle so far in 2014, and Mazda's 80 per cent private buyer ratio remains the envy of most volume brands.
Mazda takes a similar approach with the Mazda6, which unlike its direct rivals is priced from above $30,000, and the Mazda2, which continues to be officially positioned above $15,000, in contrast to many of its light-car competitors.
Australia is the fourth-largest market for Mazda globally, yet at 9.1 per cent Mazda's market share here is higher than in any other market, including Japan (5.2 per cent), Canada (4.1), the US (1.8) and Europe (1.1).
Mazda Australia has sold in excess of 100,000 vehicles in Australia for the past two years, making it the third best selling brand here and approaching the 120,000 cars Mazda sold in Europe in 2012.
Australia is also the model that other Mazda sales subsidiaries study when it comes to customer satisfaction, and while Kanai admits it won't be easy to take the brand upmarket globally, he said lessons have been learned from the failure of Mazda's premium Eunos brand in the mid-1990s.
"To be honest we had that already and we kind of failed to create that Eunos brand along with the Mazda brand," he said.
"One of the reasons we failed back then was our technology was poor, to be honest... Another reason we failed was we didn't have enough resources back then. We didn't have enough experienced people and enough money back then."
Pictured: Eunos 800 (white), Eunos 500 (blue)
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Written byMarton Pettendy
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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