Unprecedented global demand, annual summer holidays and fierce typhoons impacted heavily on Mazda Australia last month, limiting sales to just 3869 vehicles, according to VFACTS figures.

With worldwide demand for the hot-selling Mazda 3 already stretching supply, deliveries were further impacted last month by a scheduled two week factory summer holiday and then further restricted for several days as the strongest typhoons on record battered southern Japan. The typhoons also affected shipping schedules before and after each storm.

As a result Mazda 3 sales dropped to just 1003 retails or almost 50 per cent below its average sales rate of 2075 between February and July.

The managing director of Mazda Australia, Doug Dickson, said: “Our September performance was impacted heavily by lack of supply but we should see an improvement this month with deliveries allowing us to sell about 4500 in October.

“However, last month was not all bad news with the Mazda 2 (531 sales), Mazda 6 (1193 sales) and the RX-8 (115 sales) continuing to perform strongly”.

Despite the supply issues in September Mazda Australia remains on track to post a new sales record this year of about 56,000 vehicles.