Mazda’s CX-5 ‘safe’ from CX-3

MAZDA is banking on at least equalling the record 21,571 CX-5 sales it achieved last year in 2015, despite a strong pre-launch response to the smaller CX-3 crossover from potential buyers.

Speaking to GoAuto at the launch of the facelifted CX-5 in Melbourne this week, Mazda Australia managing director Martin Benders said the two SUVs will not cannibalise sales from each other as they appeal to different buyer groups.

“What we’ve seen so far is that most of the demand for the CX-3 is from people deciding if they want a small or light hatch, or whether they want one of those small SUVs,” Mr Benders said. “So it’s an alternative to those smaller cars.

“While a lot of young families with young kids are buying CX-5s, a lot of empty nesters are getting into cars like this. As they retire and so forth, they don’ t need a big sedan anymore, so something like this provides them with the ideal touring car for them to play golf or take the grandkids around.

“It’s still got enough size and everything else… as well as the right hip (height) point (for easier entry and egress).” Mazda Australia sales director Alastair Doak added that the company already has 5000 firm expressions of interest in the CX-3, even though it is still two months away from launch.

“It won’t impact on CX-5 very much,” he said. “We actually researched CX-3 and CX-5 again, and Mazda2, Mazda3 and Mazda6 together, so we got a clear picture of everything rather than just picking individual models and then trying to extrapolate from there.

“It showed that people who buy CX-5 are in that time of their life where they’ ve got young kids or a pram in the back and a baby seat the CX-3 is a proper size down on CX-5, so there will be a minimum impact on CX-5 volume.

“And we are saying 21,000 plus sales again for 2015 so our volume call reflects that.

“(Additionally) we’ve got 20,000-plus hand raisers for the (CX-3) – that’s people who are saying to keep them informed about it) – and we have over 5000 people who want us to speak to them when it goes on sale.

“Those numbers are very strong and we’re very happy with it – and that’s before we do any solid pre-launch campaign on the CX-3.” As GoAuto reported back in November, Mazda is confident that a broad model approach of petrol and diesel as well as front-drive and all-wheel drive options will help the CX-3 find more customers than its rivals.

“We said we would have a very comprehensive range of CX-3 – and maybe you could argue that we have too many – but we think it is a very immature market for those baby SUVs, so we said let’s just try and bring as many variants in as possible and let the market decide where they want to be,” Mr Doak said.

“We’ve seen other competitors take a very limited view on models and powertrains and that sort of thing, but we’ll go a different way and see what we can do.” The CX-3 will compete directly with the Holden Trax, Ford EcoSport, Peugeot 2008, Suzuki S-Cross, Mitsubishi ASX and the forthcoming Honda HR-V and Renault Captur.