Mazda's massive premium push gathers speed: "We're not scared - we're going premium"

Mazda’s premium push has really only just begun, but already the brand is confident it has silenced its doubters, saying “it has exactly played out the way we thought it would”.

While some argued the brand’s shift upmarket was off to a rocky start — when the launch of the new and more expensive Mazda3 coincided with a slump in sales across the brand’s core products — Mazda’s Australian executives have told us it was all part of the plan to shift the mainstream car maker more upmarket. And that the plan is going exactly as scripted.

“We talk about Mazda3, and when we launched it we couldn’t talk to you about CX-30, but we knew it was coming. We knew customers were moving to SUVs, and we knew what was coming down the track, but we couldn’t share it,” says Mazda Australia’s marketing director, Alastair Doak.

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“CX-30 is out-selling Mazda3 now, and that was always in the back of our minds that that transition would happen.

“We have customers that move through our brand, they get to an Akira CX-5, and then say ‘what’s next?’ And that’s what we’re delivering. We’re on a journey with those customers, and we’ve got more and more of those customers as we’ve gotten more premium.”

That initial sales slump had seemed to correspond with the brand's push up market, with the new Mazda3 introducing a price jump that even Mazda CEO Akira Marumoto conceded was "too large”.

In Australia, the cheapest Neo and Maxx Sport models were dropped. Instead, the model lineup comprised six grades, starting at $24,990 before on-road costs for the entry-level G20 Pure (manual), stepping through the G20 Evolve ($26,690), G20 Touring ($28,990), G25 Evolve ($29,490), G25 GT ($33,490), and finally running up to $36,990 for the G25 Astina.

That $24,990 starting price represented a significant $4.5k increase over the $20,490 entry point of the outgoing range. In the years since, Mazda has pushed the price of its Mazda2 up to $23,190 and the Mazda3 to $26,340.

"The price jump for the entry-level could have been too large — that is something we are reflecting on right now," Mr Marumoto said in 2020.

The new Mazda3 arrived in Australia around the middle of 2019, and the brand’s full-year sales fell to 97,619 — down from 111,280 the previous year. In 2020 they fell further still, with the brand reporting some 85,640 sales.

But that, says Mazda Australia, was all part of a broader premium play that would see the popular CX-30 launch in our market - a model which will soon be joined by the all-new CX-60 SUV - as the brand looked to more premium products in the SUV space.

In 2021, the brand recorded 101,119 sales. This year, its YTD total are already up another 10 per cent.

Mazda Australia Managing Director Vinesh Bhindi says the brand isn’t scared to push premium, and says the plan is playing out exactly as hoped.

“We’re not scared to use the word premium. We are going premium,” he says,

“But what we consider premium is not what you might say is luxury. There is a distinction that we are using as a definition.

“The intention with our premium offering will be to give our customers a journey into the next bigger, better vehicle with high craftsmanship with deriving dynamics, but still keeping the value equation true for those customers.

“That’s where CX-60 fits in, and exactly where CX-30 fits in over CX-3. There is obviously an overlap with pricing but when you look at craftsmanship, technology, R&D, there is a difference.

“It’s about choice. Our customers want choices and we’re fortunate to be able to give them those choices.”