Jaguar Land Rover sales strengthen in September but concerns remain over China
VEHICLE manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover saw sales recover in September with volumes up 3% on the same month last year, which was a record month for the business.
The company saw global sales of 47,634 vehicles last month, taking the company’s tally to the first nine months of the year to 349,412 vehicles, which it said was in line with the first nine months of 2015, in line with prior year.
The company has also confirmed it is still assessing the aftermath of the explosions in the Chinese port of Tianjin in August, which claimed 112 lives.
JLR had about 5,800 vehicles stored at the port at the time of the explosion. Many of these vehicles were destroyed or damaged.
“Given the exceptional nature of this event, Jaguar Land Rover is still assessing the damages and it may be some time before the company knows what insurance and other recoveries will be. In these circumstances, there is likely to be a one-time exceptional charge in Q2 FY16 before any potential recoveries in subsequent quarters,” it said.
The company’s regional performance for the year-to-date shows 21% growth in Europe, 18% in North America and 15% in the UK, with Overseas down 12%. Sales in the China Region are down 29% year-to-date, although it is hoping this will improve.
Commenting on the performance, Andy Goss, Group Sales Operations Director said: “The all-new Jaguar XE and the all-new Discovery Sport continued to impress this month, retailing more than 13,000 vehicles in total.
“Sales in the UK, Europe and North America have shown impressive growth year-to-date and despite a challenging macro-economic environment, particularly in China, customer demand for both our Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles remains encouraging.”
Jaguar delivered a solid performance in the month, selling 10,394 vehicles, up 22%. The increase reflects strong sales of the all-new Jaguar XE sports saloon in markets in which it has gone on sale since May, with China sales only starting in September and US sales starting in 2016. The introduction of the all new Jaguar XF only started this quarter, following the run out of the prior model.
Land Rover retailed 37,240 in September, down 1% year on year compared to a very strong September in 2014. The new Discovery Sport is outselling by 30% the Freelander it replaced and Range Rover and Range Rover Sport were up 6% and 11% respectively.
For the quarter ended September 30, which is the second quarter of Jaguar Land Rover’s fiscal year 2015/16 (Q2 FY16) the company retailed 110,200 vehicles. This was down 1% year-on-year, as continuing strong performance in Europe, up 34%, North America, up 23%, and the UK, up 9%, helped offset lower sales in Overseas (including Russia, Brazil, and MENA) and China markets, down 12% and 32% respectively.
It said the lower sales in China in Q2 FY16 reflected the continued decline of economic conditions in the country, together with planned new model transitions. These include local production of the Range Rover Evoque followed by the Land Rover Discovery Sport, as well as run out of the Jaguar XF and XJ in advance of the all new XF and 16 Model Year XJ to be launched in China later in FY16.
In outlook, it said it remained confident about the future and in the second half of FY16 planned to continue to build on the successful launches of the Land Rover Discovery Sport, the Jaguar XE and the new Jaguar XF, as well as launch the new 16 Model Year Range Rover Evoque and Jaguar XJ, followed by the recently unveiled Jaguar F-Pace in late Q4 FY16.
