CX-30

Make
Mazda
Segment
SUV

Mazda slipped out a flash report on its sales for November and the year to date on Christmas Day, and like many numbers reported by businesses this year, they're less than ideal. The pandemic has taken its toll on every aspect of society, and like all automakers, Mazda hasn't had a great time of 2020. Global production of passenger vehicles has been down for the Japanese automaker by 21.6 percent through the year, while commercial vehicles have taken an even bigger hit, dropping by 51.5 percent year over year. Curiously, domestic production for the Japanese automaker dropped the most, by 28 percent overall, compared to dropping just nine percent worldwide.

It appears that November could be a sign of the bleeding slowing down. Domestic production of key vehicles, the Mazda CX-30 and CX-5, increased by 3.1 and 3.5 percent, respectively. Overseas, production of the CX-30 and Mazda2 also increased. The CX-30, which was released in Japan in October 2019, December 2019 in the UK, and January 2020 in the US, is showing a lot of promise for Mazda with a 124.8 percent increase in production volume in November versus last year. Global sales for the CX-30 in November alone increased by 83.1 percent, with 16,046 models sold. The most disappointing numbers from a key vehicle for the Japanese automaker come from the Mazda3. Global sales are down in November by 21.2 percent with 21,799 units sold, including rebadged models.

However, if we take into account November was short by three days this year, the daily selling rate of vehicles overall was actually up by 0.1 percent for Mazda versus last year.

November's numbers across the auto industry haven't been great, and it being a shorter month by three days makes a difference. Compared with its direct competitors, Mazda is still hanging in there. Mazda's global sales volume dropped 10 percent compared with November 2019, Honda by 23.4 percent, and Hyundai dropped 9 percent. Ford's November sales dropped by 20.9 percent, with the F-150's sales dropping by a staggering 45.9 percent. Toyota took a hit of just one percent, but factoring in the lost November days, its daily-selling-rate actually went up by 12.6 percent. It appears that automakers targeting the rich aren't feeling the pinch, though.