Jaguar Land Rover Sells Half A million Cars In A Year

Britain's largest car manufacturer, Jaguar Land Rover sold half a million cars for the first time ever in the past year due to strong demands in Europe and North America.

The company  owned by Indian conglomerate Tata sold 521,571 cars in the year to the end of March, a 13% rise on the previous 12-month period. The increase, boosted by the popularity of new models such as the Jaguar XE, delivered a £342m rise in revenues to £22.2bn. However, they saw pre-tax profit fall as customers opted for cheaper models and it suffered a slowdown in the lucrative Chinese market.

Range Rover Evoque

Despite the soaring sales, pre-tax profits dropped from £2.6bn to £1.56bn. This included the £157m cost of an explosion in the Chinese port of Tianjin last August, which forced the company to write off almost 6,000 vehicles.

JLR is planning to invest about £3.75bn this year to further expand production capacity, develop new technologies and manufacture models such as the Jaguar F-Pace and Range Rover Evoque Convertible.

Jaguar F-Pace

The company has doubled vehicle sales and staff headcount over the past five years, overtaking Nissan to become the UK’s largest car manufacturer by production.

The growth represents a marked turnaround from 2009, when the company flirted with financial ruin following the banking crisis and subsequent recession.

Ralf Speth, chief executive, said: “Jaguar Land Rover has produced and sold more cars than at any time in our history.”