Strong sales of the Mazda 3 sedan and hatch ensured a buoyant start to the new year for Mazda, with the importer achieving 5,384 sales last month.

The Mazda 3 range, underpinned by good supply, sold 2,630 in January, continuing its outstanding Australian sales success.

Last year the range notched up 32,570 retail sales, making it the most popular Mazda ever.

The 2005 Mazda 3 result was up 10,524 or 48 per cent on its 22,046 retail total in 2004.

Customers rate the styling, performance, safety, quality and value as the Mazda 3’s most desirable features.

Its sales statistics are enviable ones in the tightly contested small car market with the average age of the Mazda 3 buyer one of the youngest at just 43 years, while the range-topping 115 kilowatt SP23 sedan and hatch have an average buyer aged just 30 years.

And it’s the top-end models that dominate sales with the Maxx, Maxx Sport and SP23 variants accounting for almost 70 per cent of sales last year.

“Having now secured good and consistent supply of the Mazda 3 sedan and hatch range we have sold more than 2,600 a month for the past five months and with good supply in the pipeline and plenty of cars in our dealer network we can look forward to similar results in the coming months”, said Doug Dickson, managing director, Mazda Australia.

“Overall our January result was strong and very much where we wanted to be with our sales estimate for this year increasing slightly on last year’s benchmark performance to about 67,000 retails”.

Other strong January results were achieved by the Mazda 2 with 547 retails and Mazda 6 which reached 1,142 sales.

2006 Mazda MX-5

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