Mazda Australia says supply across the bulk of its range has improved since the third quarter of 2022, to the point where orders placed today should arrive by Christmas.
A spokesperson for the Japanese brand told CarExpert that stock levels and incoming supply of the Mazda 2, Mazda 6, CX-3, CX-5, CX-8, CX-9 and BT-50 are now much better.
“As anticipated, stock levels for the vast majority of the Mazda range have steadily improved since quarter three of this year, with a number of available cars across the dealer network right now,” they said.
“Incoming arrivals across our most popular model lines – including the Mazda 2, Mazda 6, CX-3, CX-8, CX-9, BT-50 and CX-5 – in the month of December mean that customers who place an order now could also receive their vehicle by Christmas.
“Alternatively, customers wishing to wait until the new year can be confident that vehicle availability will continue to remain high across these models.
“Our dealership teams are of course best placed to advise on the specific delivery time associated with individual specifications and engine configurations, but current wait times for the models listed above are less than a month, with a healthy amount of choice to meet different customer preferences.”
As for other model lines: “Demand remains strong for popular nameplates MX-5, CX-30 and Mazda 3. We recommend customers consult with their dealer to confirm availability and delivery times for their desired specification. We have good supply and stock available on MX-30“, the spokesperson added.
Mazda has also recently introduced a new strategy where vehicles are taken directly off the wharf to dealers for pre-delivery. The brand’s local managing director, Vinesh Bhindi, recently spoke with CarExpert about it.
“We’ve been trialing this with our partners in logistics. Usually what happens is when a ship arrives, we are all required to move the cars off the wharf straight into our holding yard, and that’s the focus,” Mr Bhindi said.
“But we’ve been working on something – direct off-wharf – so we can take the car as soon as it’s offloaded from the wharf straight to a dealer… if there’s a customer name, it can go straight on arrival from the dock to the dealership for the dealership to do their preparation work.”
According to Mr Bhindi, this new direct off-wharf strategy is shaving 1-2 weeks off customer wait times, which can only be a good thing in today’s supply-constrained market.
With improving supply for the final months of the year, Mazda Australia looks on track to crack 90,000 deliveries in 2022. To the end of October, the Japanese brand has registered 79,669 units across its line-up, down 10.2 per cent on the same period in 2021 though still firmly in second place overall in the manufacturer standings.
Leading the charge for Mazda in Australia is the ever-popular CX-5 (23,476 units, up 6.6 per cent), the smaller CX-30 (12,252 units, up 8.1 per cent), and the BT-50 dual-cab (2095 4×2 and 8511 4×4).
The new year will also see Mazda launch a running change for the CX-5 early in 2023, a mildly facelifted CX-8 in March, as well as the all-new CX-60 premium mid-size SUV in June which was detailed earlier this week.
Mazda Australia has also confirmed the all-new CX-90 will join the local line-up at some point, though more will be revealed when the new model is unveiled in full in January.
MORE: Everything Mazda 2 | Mazda 6 | BT-50 | CX-3 | CX-5 | CX-8 | CX-9