That's interesting, I didn't know that. I figured you were referring to the European company/ies called Mazda. 
This is a different Mazda which was a association of light bulb manufactures.
The Mazda association did not manufacture anything.
The Mazda association had been around quite a while before fluorescent lighting was introduced in 1938 by GE.
There were several small incandescent bulb manufactures as well as the "big three" GE, Westinghouse, and Sylvania (Hygrade).
The idea of the Mazda association was to have light bulb manufactures "cooperate" with each other to make a better product.
But since GE owned most of the incandescent bulb patents, GE set limits on production of different types of light bulbs by manufactures.
This way the light bulb market could be controlled and keep prices from falling below a certain level.
The electric utilities were also involved and made sure that there was a ever increasing demand for electricity to operate the light bulbs made by the association of bulb manufactures.
The consumer was left out of the picture.
The Mazda association would be called a cartel today.
Also on the surface, GE and Westinghouse were competitors, but in reality they worked together on many areas of common interests, one which was the production of light bulbs and the marketing of those light bulbs through the Mazda association.
All really cozy, but Sylvania (Hygrade) refused to go along with the program and struck out on their own with a aggressive marketing and sales of lighting products.
Eventually this threw a wrench in to the works and the whole cozy Mazda association started to fall apart.
Along with WW2 with all out production for the war effort starting in 1942, the limits on light bulb production that were set up much earlier no longer worked anyway.
Plus the introduction of fluorescent lighting further complicated the Mazda associations internal structure that was originally set up for incandescent bulbs, not fluorescent bulbs.
