Mazda Motor Corporation is a Japanese automotive manufacturer based in Hiroshima, Japan. During 2007, Mazda produced almost 1.3 million vehicles for global sales. The majority of these were produced in the company's Japanese plants, with the remainder coming from a variety of other plants worldwide. It is said that Mazda coincides with the anglicized pronunciation of the founder's name, Jujiro Matsuda, who was interested in spirituality, and chose to rename the firm in honor of both his family and Zoroastrianism. The word Mazda derives from Ahura Mazda, the Avestan language name for a... divinity exalted by the ancient Iranian prophet Zoroaster, as the source of wisdom, intelligence and harmony. In Japanese, the company's name has always been pronounced and spelled as "Matsuda", the name of the founder. Television ads for Mazda automobiles in the United States use a pronunciation where the initial vowel sound is the 'a' in "father", while Canadian Mazda advertisements pronounce the company's name with the initial "a" sound of the word "has".