Is Mazda the same company as Ford?

Ford owns Mazda partially by holding a significant amount of shares and has a "strategic partnership" in development, sale, ....

There are models that are basically the same car sold unter both brands in differnet countries like e.g. the Mazda 323 in Europe (Familia in some other countries) which was sold as Ford Laser in e.g. New Zealand.

More information can be found in Wikipedia