The relaunch of Mazda Philippines is part $50- million investments announced by the Ford Motor Group last year. Ford Motor Company is the single biggest stockholder of Mazda Motor Company of Japan, owning approximately 30 percent of the company.
At yesterday’s corporate relaunch, Mazda Philippines managing director Dave Macasadia bared plans of launching soon two models and two more before the end of the year. These models are Mazda 6 (from Japan), Mazda 3, a new model, and Tribute and Protege (also for the exports markets).
The company will also put up three to four dealerships in Metro Manila this year in addition to the existing dealership in Quezon Avenue and Araneta. Some provincial dealerships will also be put up next year while those areas with no outlets would be serviced by Ford Motor Philippines in the meantime.
"The entry of Mazda is sure to give a fresh breath to the local automotive sector, giving us the opportunity to view things in an all-new perspective," Macasadia said.
Ford Group Philippines president Henry Co said that Mazda’s targetted two percent share in the local passenger car market this year means an additional 2,000 unit sales to the group’s projected sales this year.
Overall, the Ford Group Philippines hopes to sell 25,000 units this year including 16,000 units in exports of completely builtup units to ASEAN countries, 7,000 units in local sales and 2,000 units of Mazda vehicles. Last year, the Ford Group here sold a total of 19,000 units including exports of 13,500 units.
Had the company’s exports been included in the industry’s sales computation, Co said they could easily be ranked as the country’s second largest automotive company in terms of total volume.
"We rely on three markets, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines," Co said.
The group is looking at adding two new export markets in ASEAN this year to strengthen its exports program. One destination could be Vietnam.
Co, however, said the assembly of Mazda pickups, which used to be assembled by Filipino-owned Francisco Motors Corp., is not yet in the company’s timetable.
At present, Francisco Motors has a pending demand for Mazda and Ford to compensate for their efforts in developing and building up the Mazda product image here.
Co, however, refused to comment the FMC-Mazda dispute saying Ford has nothing to do with their previous agreement.
