Mazda's February Sales Show First Signs of Recovery

Even if the economic mayhem is still creating chaos in the automotive industry, Mazda today unveiled that its February 2009 sales finally showed some signs of recovery, with five countries achieving sales records in this month. "The relatively strong performance in 12 markets helped to increase Mazda Motor Europe's passenger car share, both European-wide and on a country level," the Japanese car manufacturer said in a statement for the press.

Overall, Mazda's share of the European passenger car market grew up by 0.3 percent in February 2009 compared to the same month of 2008, and is estimated to reach 2.0 percent for the month.

More importantly, the Japanese company achieved its highest February market shares in multiple countries across Europe, including UK and Spain (predicted at 2.4 and 1.1 percent respectively) as well as Turkey and Poland (1.1 and 1.0 percent). Moreover, in Ukraine, Mazda increased its market share to 5 percent, the company said in February 2009 figures.

"Government incentives have encouraged some consumers into buying cars again in Germany, where Mazda has performed very well of late," it added. Russia also brought pretty high sales, as the company recorded its second-highest February retail volume ever, with 4,297 units.

Beside all these positive figures, Mazda achieved record monthly level in Slovenia, Poland, Turkey, Belarus and Algeria.

Mazda announced in early February that it expects a fiscal year loss of $144 million (13 million yen), citing the collapsing sales in the United States as the reason. In addition, the company reported a loss of 600 million yen in the third quarter of the fiscal year (October - December) compared to a net profit of 15.9 billion yen recorded in the previous year.