Improved global sales prop up Jaguar Land Rover

Global demand has helped to prop up Jaguar Land Rover amidst falling sales of its vehicles in the UK.

However, even with strong markets like China, the manufacturer still only saw a 0.2% growth in year-on-year sales in October.

Latest figures from the group show it sold 46,418 vehicles around the world in October. It said sales were solid on all models, with the new Range Rover Velar and its Jaguar derivative, the F-PACE, bringing new customers to the brand.

Nevertheless, sales for Jaguar overall were down 14% during the month compared with October 2016 at 12,336 vehicles. In contrast, Land Rover saw a 7% grow, with sales of 34,082.

For the 10-months to date, total JLR sales are up 7% at 513,080, with Jaguar up 27% at 149,834 and Land Rover 0.2% at 363,246 units.

The manufacturer said China continued to perform well with sales up 12%, while overseas markets were up 16% compared to the same period in 2016.

However, it acknowledged difficult market conditions had led to retail sales being down 18% in the UK, and 3% down in Europe and the US.

Andy Goss, Jaguar Land Rover Group Sales Operations Director, said: “It’s pleasing to see our global sales have been maintained year on year in October, despite facing increasingly challenging conditions in our key UK, US and European markets.”

Jaguar Land Rover

Other manufacturers – including JLR’s fierce rival BMW – are also struggling. The German manufacturer has revealed an increase in third quarter sales, although this was by a fairly modest 1.2%.

It said deliveries of BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles in the three months to September 30 were 590,415 units (2016: 583,499 units). Held down by currency factors, group revenues totalled € 23,424m, up 0.3% on the previous year (€ 23,362m).

It said that as expected, increased costs in Q3 dampened earnings. At € 2,304m, profit before financial result (EBIT) for the three-month period was slightly down on the previous year, influenced by significantly higher investments, as well as expenses for research and development.

Q3 pre-tax profit amounted to € 2,422m (2016: € 2,575 million), a slump of almost 6%.

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