Mazda undoubtedly knows a thing or two about selling medium SUVs in the Australian market, with more than 330,000 CX-5s sold here and more than 20,000 current customers having owned more than one CX-5. So, Mazda’s sales leader is as popular as it is attractive the second time around.

Making up approximately 25 per cent of Mazda’s Australian sales – and topping the brand’s sales charts for the last seven years running – the CX-5 (below) is once again projected to crest 25,000 sales in 2026, with the outgoing model and new model combined.

But can that success be sustained in the face of increasing competition – specifically from China but also elsewhere? Mazda Australia’s boss, Vinesh Bhindi, reckons the current sales climate is a reflection of how it’s always been in Australia.

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“When you go back in time, there are always others available that are cheap, or cheaper,” Bhindi told WhichCar by Wheels. “But Australians do understand the economics, and how purchasing a car works – that other implications outside of the sticker price should be taken into consideration.”

Bhindi reiterates that those ‘other implications’ should be taken into account before the purchase of something as expensive as a motor vehicle.

“The support, the warranty, the resale value, and the feeling… if you do want a Mazda drive, you’re only going to get it from a Mazda, not from any other product that’s around,” Bhindi said. “So there are customers who are still in tune with that thinking. We have to continue to make sure that our value package remains right, not over, not under, but we have to offer something that is different.”

That point of difference, according to Mazda, is in the range of vehicles you can access with its badge on them. While it’s unlikely sedans will have a resurgence similar to that seen in the USA of the last 12 to 24 months, Mazda will continue to offer cars like Mazda 2 and Mazda 3 which are still attractive to Australian buyers if not as popular as they once were.

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“We haven’t gotten any indication that there will be a resurgence, but it won’t dip any further,” Mazda Australia Director of Sales and Marketing, Jarrod Gieschen said.

“There’s a market for those cars, but there are really different reasons for why people have made those choices,” Bhindi said. “And our plan is to offer as much choice as we can.”

The addition of two soon-to-be released electric vehicles, the 6e and CX-6e (above), will again broaden that choice within the Mazda showroom.

“It’s been really interesting with 6e and CX-6e, where the 6e has appealed more to our traditional database (of owners), whereas the CX-6e has been new customers to the brand,” Gieschen said.
“So it just goes to show that Mazda, with our history of passenger cars, is still obviously appealing.”