Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) global sales fell by 5.9% in 2019, but company bosses say a positive second half of the year and new models will boost its performance in 2020.
The British firm sold 557,706 models worldwide last year, a 5.9% decline on 2018. Land Rover accounted for 396,105, down 3.8%, while Jaguar took 161,601, a fall of 10.6%.
JLR said the figures represented “more challenging industry conditions” as global car sales dipped. But commercial boss Felix Bräutigam said the overall results masked progress in the second half of the year, calling 2019 “a year of two halves” for the firm.
JLR has been particularly hit by its struggles in China, where sales fell by 13.5% in 2019. But sales improved in the region in the second half of the year, with double digit year-on-year increases in each of the last six months of 2019.
Bräutigam credited “intensive work with our retailers, combined with significant progress and product improvements” for the turnaround. Improving performance in China has been a key focus of JLR's ongoing turnaround programme, which helped it return to profit in the most recent financial quarter.
Sales declined by 4.9% in Europe and 1.7% in the UK during 2019, but North America provided a bright spot, growing 1.8%. Bräutigam added that JLR “chose not to weaken the iconic Jaguar brand” by cutting prices to increase sales volume.
The firm had a number of successful models this year, with sales of the new Range Rover Evoque, Jaguar E-Pace, Jaguar I-Pace and Range Rover Sport all rising.
Bräutigam believes those models will continue to sell well in 2020 and is anticipating growth for the newly updated Land Rover Discovery Sport. The launch of the new Land Rover Defender is also expected to provide a substantial boost.
Notably, 6% of JLR cars sold last year featured a plug-in hybrid or electric powertrain. In the UK, 23% of Range Rovers and 20% of Range Rover Sports sold were plug-in hybrids.
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JLR and the future
JLR management should take steps to improve reliability in their product. Various models are at or near bottom of reliability tables year after year. It was ever thus with both marques. Even if Mercedes, BMW and Audi only rank middling, having JLR attain that same status would be groundbraking and would help sales no end.
We still have UK Vauxhall, UK Nissan and UK JLR all building cars with unacceptbale reliabilty scores. Why is that?
The survey says....
Could be worse, BMW with their even more 'unacceptable realiabilty' could be building here
Journalism or Press Release?
Is this supposed to be an article written by a journalist, or is it just a copy and paste of a JLR press release?
The article states: "Bräutigam added that JLR “chose not to weaken the iconic Jaguar brand” by cutting prices to increase sales volume."
I picked the first car that i could find on the Jaguar Approved Used site, which was a 69 plate, XF R-Sport, registered 30/09/19, 180 PS diesel automatic in Santorini black, with 10 miles on the clock, at a Jaguar main dealer.
The list price is £39,830. The dealer is asking £26,990.
Therefore they must be cutting prices, unless the dealer is deliberately trying to go bust! They can pretend that the car is sold, and therefore make their sales figures look better. They can pretend that it's a secondhand car and that they do not discount new cars, but it's just fake news. Autocar are doing nothing to challenge this nonsense and are adversely affecting their reputation as a result.
Sales improvement ?
Sales improvement ?
Hmmmm, that's not what the telegraph, the times and the FT say.
Now I wonder who I believe more...
It's a hard one...