Jaguar Land Rover's profit was almost entirely erased last year as the British luxury-car maker tries to recover from the impact of US tariffs, a demand slump in China and a cyberattack that roiled production.
The manufacturer of Range Rover sport utility vehicles on Thursday reported a pretax profit of £14 million ($19 million) for the 12 months through March, down from £2.5 billion a year earlier.
JLR was pushing through an ambitious plan to create an entire new lineup of fully electric Jaguar cars when US President Donald Trump raised import tariffs for the carmaker's largest market. A drop in luxury demand in China has also piled on pressure, along with a crippling cyberattack starting last September that shut down production for weeks.
JLR made a profit in the latest three-month period, recovering from a loss in the previous quarter, as it moves toward a full recovery from the shutdown.
That helped its Indian parent Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Ltd., which reported earnings for its latest quarter that were better than analysts expected but still down from a year earlier. JLR accounts for nearly two-thirds of its sales.
JLR Chief Executive Officer P B Balaji, who joined from Tata Motors in November, is pushing ahead with a plan to revive the Jaguar brand, which has stopped producing vehicles until the new lineup is ready. The move has proved controversial, with a video teaser provoking criticism from the likes of Trump for featuring expressionless models dressed for the catwalk — but no vehicles.
The company plans to unveil the first new Jaguar and deliver the first electric Range Rover later this year.
After other European automakers said they'd be open to sharing or offloading underutilized factories to Chinese carmakers looking to expand in the region, Balaji ruled out such a move. It follows reports earlier this year that Chery Automobile Co., JLR's partner in China, was considering a deal to produce cars at its sites.
With its Solihull and Halewood plants in the UK at or near capacity, “we therefore don't see that as a possibility,” he said.
‘Enough Challenges'
Proposals by the European Union to encourage the use of local content, dubbed “Made in Europe,” don't currently include the UK, which has left the bloc. That means companies manufacturing in the UK like JLR won't qualify for certain incentives.
“It is something that we believe needs careful thought,” Balaji said on a call with reporters. “There are already enough challenges the industry is facing — we shouldn't be adding to that.”
Tata Motors' domestic business has been on an upswing in the wake of a consumer tax cut last year that helped lift deliveries to a record.
The India business sold more than 201,800 vehicles in the March quarter, a 37% jump from a year earlier.
Demand has stayed resilient despite a slew of geopolitical disruptions this year, Shailesh Chandra, managing director at Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, said in a media call. An impending hike in the prices of fuels may weigh on demand in India, Chandra added.
Tata Motors' net income fell by nearly a third to 57.8 billion rupees ($604 million) in the latest quarter.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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