Jaguar Land Rover to roll out more models to spruce up demand
Jaguar Land Rover said it will roll out more products next year to boost sales and profit as the luxury unit of Tata Motors is fighting slowing demand in its key markets
Mumbai: Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC said it will roll out more products next year to boost sales and profit as the luxury unit of Tata Motors Ltd is fighting slowing demand in its key markets.
Tata Motors’ profit almost tripled on the back of a better product mix. Net income was Rs24.8 billion in three months through September, compared with a Rs8.3 billion a year earlier, Tata Motors said in a statement. That compares with the Rs18.4 billion average of analysts’ estimates made by nine analysts on an estimated revenue of Rs689 billion.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is building a plant in Slovakia for the new Discovery SUV while the British luxury brand is also seeking to launch a smaller, less expensive Jaguar E-Pace SUV in markets, including China, next year.
For Jaguar Land Rover, China is its top market, followed by North America and the UK. Car sales in China have picked up in recent months as auto makers offered larger discounts and introduced more new products to entice customers, after the government’s increase of a sales tax at the start of the year deterred buyers.
“We will continue to focus on our strategic objective of achieving profitable, sustainable growth," Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. The company has spent £1 billion on boosting capacity in the quarter, he said.
Jaguar Land Rover said it will launch E-Pace and new Land Rover sport variants this winter. It will also launch I-PACE battery electric vehicle and plug-in hybrids in 2018, the company said in October.
Though Jaguar Land Rover’s scale is less than global peers, its margins are competitive with Mercedes, General Motors and Toyota, because Jaguar focuses on premium brands and new products, which can limit discounting, Bloomberg Intelligence said in a 15 September report.
That said, profitability is cyclical and may be more challenged in future years, as JLR and automotive competitors invest in engine manufacturing, vehicle architecture and new technologies, without a clear understanding of future profit pools, it said. Bloomberg
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