JLR retail sales up 12% in Q4, continuing recovery from Covid-19 impact

Tata Motors said on Tuesday its British luxury unit Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) achieved retail sales of 123,483 vehicles in Q4 fiscal 2020-21, 12.4 per cent higher than the same quarter last year.

China sales were up 127 per cent compared to a year ago when that market was heavily impacted by Covid-19. Sales in North America were also up year-on-year (plus 10.4 per cent) while other regions remain lower than pre-Covid levels, including overseas markets (minus10 per cent), the UK (minus 6.8 per cent) and Europe (minus 4.9 per cent).

For the full 2020-21 fiscal year, JLR global retail sales totalled 439,588 vehicles, down 13.6 per cent on the previous year as a result of the impact of the pandemic.

Growth in China was strong with retails reaching 111,206 vehicles, up 23.4 per cent year-on-year. Sales in other regions have not yet recovered to pre-Covid levels with North America down 14.3 per cent and the UK, Europe and overseas markets each down more than 20 per cent.

"Despite very different Covid restrictions worldwide, we achieved our objective of balanced sales across our key markets," said Felix Brautigam, JLR's Chief Commercial Officer.

"While the Covid-19 pandemic has an ongoing impact on the global auto industry, I am pleased to end the financial year with sales up year-on-year in the last quarter.

On March 31, the company had 4.8 billion pounds of cash and short-term investments and 6.7 billion pounds of available liquidity, including the 1.9 billion pounds undrawn committed credit facility (RCF) maturing in July 2022. The company has now extended 1.31 billion pounds of the RCF to March 2024.