Mazda crosses 50 million production milestone since 1931

KUALA LUMPUR: Mazda has a very rich history in the field of automobiles. The company has been doing business for around 86 years now and has witnessed quite a lot of success over the entire span. The first Mazda car was a three-wheeler truck that was produced at the company’s plant at Hiroshima.

Mazda has now achieved a huge milestone of producing 50 million vehicles since its inception. Hence, in order to celebrate it, the company held a ceremony in Yamaguchi at the Hofu Plant. Several high-commissioned people from the company were a part of the attendance, including the CEO, President and some other union representatives and executive officers.

The CEO and President, Mr. Masamichi Kogai, further enumerated on this achievement saying that even if a company makes a million units annually, it would take 50 years to reach the milestone. Hence, this proves how far and deep-rooted the company’s history is.

Initially, Mazda manufactured three-wheeler trucks only. It was only after 1960 that the company started making passenger cars, the first one being the R360 Coupe. Since then, it has produced many iconic models, thereby winning a lot of hearts among the automobile enthusiasts around the globe.

Currently, the company has a lot of aims to be achieved in the near future. Mazda is looking to up the ante by producing 1,660,000 cars by the end of this fiscal year. There are even plans to increase the production network so that two million units could be manufactured in a year. Also, it is aiming to start mass production of cars with next-gen technology by 2019.

In Mazda’s scheme of things, Hofu and Hiroshima will continue to be the parent factories and will send in skills and technologies to all the production plants globally. Currently, the Mazda CX-9 is the flagship model, while the Mazda 2 is the entry-level car in the company’s lineup in Malaysia.

Interestingly, Mazda inaugurated the Hofu plant in the year 1982, thereby treating it as a sister production facility to the Hiroshima plant for domestic manufacturing purposes.