Mazda April U.S. Sales Go MOOZ MOOZ MOOZ

Reuters reports that Mazda Motor Corp., Japan's fifth-largest carmaker, saw its U.S. sales in the first half of April fall by about 10 percent following a strong start to the year, President Mark Fields said on Friday. Fields told reporters that the year-on-year drop was a concern although the fact that the period covered both the Easter and Passover holidays could have affected sales. Mazda, which is 33 percent-owned by Ford Motor Co., enjoyed the fastest U.S. sales growth of any Japanese car maker in the first three months of 2001, Fields said. Sales climbed 23.1 percent from the same period a year earlier to 65,761. Mazda, like its rivals Nissan Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Motor Corp., is in the throes of a sweeping restructuring dictated by a dominant foreign shareholder aimed at cutting costs and restoring profitability. Fields cleared the decks for recovery by taking massive pension-fund and restructuring costs that left Mazda with a group net loss for the year ended March 31 of around 156.5 billion yen ($1.29 billion). The firm aims to break even this year. Despite the progress, Fields said the stock market is now waiting for him to deliver. The results to date, he acknowledged, were just not good enough.