According to Mazda’s managing executive officer Tetsuya Fujimoto, the Japanese carmaker expects global production to reduce by 100,000 units in its current fiscal year (FY2022) due to the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.
This was revealed during a recent earnings call, where the company also announced its results for the previous financial year (FY2021). From April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, Mazda delivered a total of 1.287 million cars, which was 9% less than the 1.419 million cars recorded in FY2020.
In North America and China, Mazda experienced an increase in sales by 2% and 8% respectively, although dips in Japan (-13%) and Europe (32%) led to an overall decline. The ASEAN region also saw a drop in sales of Mazda vehicles, with Thailand singled out for recording a 23% year-on-year (YoY) reduction to just 40,000 units.
There were some bright spots, as Vietnam and Australia experienced a 1% and 3% YoY growth, with the latter also securing a higher market share of 9.8% (+1%). Other markets however, were down 13% YoY.
The decline in demand resulted in a reduced operating income, with 8.8 billion yen recorded in FY2021 compared to 43.6 billion yen in FY2020. Unsurprisingly, the impact from Covid-19 affected Mazda heavily, requiring the company to push for sales recovery, fixed cost reduction and variable profit improvement that saw recovery in the second half of FY2021.
For FY2022, Mazda expects sales volume to climb to 1.41 million cars, accompanied by an operating profit of 65 billion yen. However, the company is cautious about ongoing issues such as the semiconductor shortage and rising prices of raw materials.
Looking to sell your car? Sell it with Carro.
Serius chip shortage since Motorola and freescale left malaysia, wrong moves by this MNC.
All the best to Mazda. Ride with the horse as one to achieve 65 billion Yen profit in the new financial year!
Chip shortage? Yeah right more like management planning failure.