Mazda’s benchmark March performance enabled the car maker to push through the 7000 sales barrier for the first time.

The March result surpassed Mazda’s previous record of 6627 retails (set in January 2007) by 7.7 per cent, or 513 vehicles. This is a hefty 25 per cent up on the same month last year (5706 sales).

Strong year-to-date sales have secured the company its best ever quarterly sales performance of 20,132 vehicles, smashing its previous quarterly benchmark set in 2005 (17,631 sales).

Mazda has achieved a year-to-date market share of 7.9 per cent, an improvement of 0.8 percentage points over the first three months of last year.

The benchmark March performance produced a number of records for individual models with the Mazda2 reaching its best-ever monthly result with 732 sales, while the company’s commercial utility range, led by the new BT-50, also set a new high with 789 sales.

The Mazda3 sedan and hatch was the company’s best seller, posting a new March sales record with 3182 sales and 15.7 per cent of the small car market.

The all-new SUV crossover, the CX-7, went from strength-to-strength last month retailing 775 vehicles, almost 200 sales up on its February total. Combined sales of the CX-7 and Tribute delivered Mazda’s best-ever SUV sales month.

Mazda’s Y-T-D share of the SUV market has reached 5.3 per cent compared with 2.1 per cent last year.

Mazda6, with 1232 sales and 18.2 per cent segment share, was again the top-selling import in the sub $60,000 Medium segment, while Mazda’s sports cars each passed 100 sales last month (MX-5 133 sales and RX-8 107 sales).

Doug Dickson, managing director of Mazda Australia said: “Obviously we are delighted with our March performance, with more Australians than ever before choosing to buy one of our award-winning Stylish, Insightful and Spirited vehicles.

“All of us at Mazda Australia and our dealer network appreciate our customer’s support and we will continue to further improve the ownership experience as we work towards selling about 68,000 vehicles this year”.

“Our record start to 2007 has Mazda very well placed to achieve this benchmark retail performance”.