THEY’RE popping open the champagne at Mazda’s Hiroshima HQ as the company celebrates recession-busting production and global sales figures.
The 1.3 million vehicles which the company produced in its factories around the world last year represented a massive 32.8 per cent increase on 2009.
The company produced almost 30 per cent more cars in Japan, but the real star performers were Mazda’s overseas production facilities which built almost 50 per cent more cars than they did during 2009.
Nor was it a case of building cars for stock-piling, for sales of Mazda cars around the world also bucked the trend with a stunning 29.8 per cent increase in exports and a 9.5 per cent sales increase in Japan.
Exports to Europe increased by 8.8 per cent, but the biggest growth was in North America with an increase of over 40 per cent.
Cars most in demand in the company’s franchises around the world were the Mazda 3 with the 352,891 examples exported representing a 19.4 per cent year-on-year increase while the 68,457 Mazda 6 models shipped from Japan was a massive 62.6 per cent more than during 2009.