Miata Mailing List: April 1995, Message #186
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   From: SAMUEH01@MCRCR6.MED.NYU.EDU
Subject: Re: Mazda is hurting
   Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 17:56:55 -0400

The Business Section of the New York Times had an article about car
sales today.  Toyota is down about 14% with a significant reduction in
those models from Japan (i.e. everything other than Camrys and
Corollas).  Honda imports are also down.  Domestic production of
Toyotas and Hondas are up slightly.  For Mazda domestic production is 
up by 20% but models imported from Japan are down by 30%.  Since Mazda 
makes the 626 and MX-6 here the sales of both are up.  Mazda imports 
the Miata, RX-7, MPV, Millenia, and Protege from Japan.  Its difficult to 
interpret the impact of the import figures since Mazda had many buyer 
incentives last year to clear out the old Protege.  My guess is that 
the Protege is expected to account for 70% of import sales.  The new 
Protege is an expensive car when properly equiped and almost as much 
as a 626 and I think that is the problem. I've seen many more
Millenias than Proteges in the New York Metropolitan area. Until Mazda 
manufactures the Protege in North America they will have trouble selling 
the 80,000 to 100,000 Proteges per year that they want.  At their current 
selling rate Mazda is selling about 35-40% of the vehicles (both import 
and domestic) that Toyota sells, and about 50% of the vecicles that
Honda sells.  With the further devaluation of the dollar vs. the yen
things will probably get worse for imports from Japan and not better. 
In one sense the import problem may be more significant for Honda and
Toyota than Mazda since all Lexus and Acura automobiles are imported. 
I know that both those dealerships are hurting, particularly in the
higher price models and now have signigficant competition from BMW and
Mercedes.  Mazda does not compete in that market.  Both Honda and
Toyota have made big investments in Acura and Lexus.  Acura doesn't
make a lot of money on Intergas but they do on Legends which are not
selling well.  I think that they will still have a problem with the
newer Legand replacements since they are more expensive and will still
have difficulty competing with Lexus and BMW and Mercedes.

Herb Samuels