Global sales fall at Jaguar Land Rover

Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover reveals quarterly fall in global sales just weeks after announcing a £500m investment at its Liverpool city region factory. Tony McDonough reports

A worker at the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Halewood. Picture from JLR

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) says global sales in the second quarter of its fiscal year were down 3% year-on-year but are up by the same percentage for the half year.

In late September the automaker announced a £500m investment into its factory in Halewood in Merseyside. This will push Halewood further towards the goal of becoming the company’s first all-electric vehicle plant.

JLR reported 103,108 units sold in July, August and September (including the Chery Jaguar Land Rover China JV) were down 3% compared to the same quarter a year ago. However, retail sales for the half year were 3% up to 214,288 units.

Compared to the prior year, retail sales in the quarter were up 29% in the UK, up 9% in North America, down 22% in Europe, down 17% in China and down 6% overseas.JLR Production in the quarter was restricted to around 86,000 units, down 7% compared to the same quarter a year ago. This was as a result of supply disruptions from a key high‑grade aluminium supplier that affected multiple manufacturers.

Wholesale volumes of 87,303 units in the second quarter of the financial year (excluding the Chery Jaguar Land Rover China JV) were down 10% compared to the same quarter a year ago due to restricted aluminium supplies.

At the end of September, a temporary hold was placed on around 6,500 vehicles, largely in the UK and Europe, to allow additional quality control checks to be performed. These vehicles will be wholesaled in the second half of the year.

In a statement on Tuesday, JLR said: “The overall mix of the most profitable Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender models was 67% of total wholesale volumes.

“We expect both production and wholesale volumes to pick up strongly in the second half of the financial year as the aluminium supply situation normalises.”

At Halewood more than 3,500 workers assemble the Range Rover, Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport. The factory first opened in 1963 to produce the Ford Anglia.

Now the plant is being transformed for the electric vehicle (EV) era. This latest investment will support the parallel production of electric vehicles, alongside existing combustion and hybrid models.

With £250 million already invested, the transformation so far has involved more than 1m hours of construction work over the last 12 months.

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