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* Mazda's China sales grew 17 pct in H1 vs market's 1.4 pct
* Sales benefiting from change in consumer behaviour
* Market share under 1 pct; likely to remain niche player
By Kazunori Takada
NANJING, China, July 17 (Reuters) - Chinese car sales have barely got out of first gear this year, yet a shift in consumer behaviour has sent Mazda Motor Corp hurtling out of the pack, posting records and struggling to keep pace only with demand.
Japan's fifth-biggest automaker has found its sporty design philosophy clicked with an emerging class of drivers who have abandoned copycat buying and the widely held perception that only long-established leaders, notably Volkswagen AG , make decent cars.
"Other cars are either too round or stocky, but the CX-5 has more of a flowing character," said Nanjing office worker Xu Duo, 27, who bought Mazda's sport utility vehicle last year.
China car sales grew 1.4 percent in the first half of 2015, the weakest in six years. An industry body last week said a stock market slump exacerbated consumer concern about prospects in an economy expanding at its slowest in over two decades.
Yet Mazda logged its best-ever first half at 17 percent, boosted by sales of the CX-5 as well as sedans Axela and Atenza. Demand has been so strong that supplies have failed to keep up for some models, a Mazda spokesman told Reuters.
Mazda's market share nevertheless remains under 1 percent and the number of cars it sells each month is a fraction of those of rivals like Volkswagen. The German automaker built a leading share of about a fifth over the past 30 years, while Mazda's first major push was as recent as 2007.
SPORTY DESIGN
But the market has been shaken in recent years as more drivers gain experience of cars from a wider variety of makers, and learn firsthand that German vehicles do not necessarily excel above all others as is commonly believed, analysts say.
An influential annual consumer TV show added to the doubt when it picked on Volkswagen in two of the past three years for issues with quality and service, said Yale Zhang, head of researcher Automotive Foresight. Sales practices at Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz were also targeted.
"The German myth is being broken," said Zhang.
The changing perception has given Mazda the chance to rapidly gain ground while remaining a niche player with its streamlined, sporty design philosophy, dubbed kodo.
"It's impossible to convey our kodo design to all of China's 1.3 billion people," Norihiro Matsuo, president of Changan Mazda Automobile - one of Mazda's two Chinese joint ventures - said in a group interview in Nanjing last week.