Mazda: Compact SUVs to outsell hatchbacks

The Toyota Corolla and Mazda3 are comfortably the best-selling cars in Australia, but Mazda's head office predicts that the hatchback genre will soon be toppled by compact SUVs such as the Mazda CX-5.

Speaking with Australian journalists at the LA auto show, Masahiro Moro, managing executive officer for Mazda, says sales of the brand's most popular SUV will soon outnumber that of its best-selling car, the Mazda3.

"If you look at the industry you will see people switch from a conventional car into an SUV, this is a very obvious trend," Moro-san says.

"For example in CX-5 when we launched global projections were 160,000 units. This year we are looking to do 350,000 units of sales.

"At this moment Mazda3 is our best-selling vehicle... in five years, probably it will be CX-5, we are selling over 400,000 units globally of Mazda3. But CX-5 is catching up."

While the global market may soon be dominated by SUVs, Mazda Australia believes local customers will buck the trend.

Alastair Doak, marketing chief for Mazda Australia, says the CX-5 is unlikely to topple the C-Segment SUVs such as the Corolla or Mazda3 locally.

"I can't see it happening," Doak says.

"We think the C-segment will be the number one for the foreseeable future."

The Japanese brand launched its city-sized Mazda CX-3 SUV in LA, adding to a segment already populated by the likes of Holden, Ford, Nissan and Peugeot.

Moro-san predicts that the CX-3 will struggle to shift as many units as the larger CX-5.

"I think this is still a developing segment," he says, "I'm sure globally this sub-segment will grow.

"My gut feel is that CX-5 will have higher sales volume than CX-3 because of the segment size."