JAGUAR Land Rover has announced a pre-tax loss of £264million for the first three months of the financial year.
The luxury car manufacturer announced 131,560 wholesales for the period April to June this year – down 5 per cent from the corresponding period last year.
Chief executive professor Dr Ralf Speth attributed it market changes including falling wholesales associated with planned reduced import tariffs in China.
JLR sold around 145,000 vehicles in April to June– up 5.9 per cent on the previous year – but overall revenues slumped due to wholesale performance.
Revenues for the quarter were £5.2billion, 6.7 per cent lower year-on-year.
Import duty have been slashed from 25 per cent to 10 per cent in China in a bid to open up its economy.
Import duty is a tax collected on imports and some exports by a country’s customs authorities.
Prof Dr Speth said: “We had a pre-tax loss in the first quarter, reflecting the impact of the announcement of the duty reduction in China as well as planned dealer stock reductions in the quarter.
“We also continue to be impacted negatively by uncertainty over diesels in Europe along with Brexit and additional diesel taxes in UK.
“Given these issues, we will remain focused on driving growth and simultaneously reducing costs and boosting operational efficiency and capability, taking the necessary steps to shape our future.
“We expect sales and financial results to improve over the remainder of the financial year, driven by continued ramp-up of new models, most recently the electric Jaguar I-PACE, and with the new lower duties effective in China.”
Prof Dr Speth warned last month ‘a bad Brexit deal’ could cost the company more than £1.2billion a year and put more jobs at risk.
Despite this, the company says it continues to invest over proportionately in new vehicles, automotive technologies and facilities to support its future sustainable growth, with total investment spending of £1.1billion for the quarter.
This investment and other capital spending of £1billion led to negative operating cash flow of £1.7billion.
The company says it plans to invest in the region of £4.5billion in the current financial year.
It announced in June it was set to move all production of its Discovery model from Solihull to a new factory in Slovakia.
It also warned of potential job losses as a result of the shift.
As we reported in April, around 1,000 agency staff were told they would be losing their jobs at JLR’s Lode Lane plant in Solihull.
It also confirmed 350 permanent workers were to be transferred from its Castle Bromwich facility to Lode Lane.
But the company insists it remains committed to a long-term future in Coventry, Solihull and the region, and investment will boost jobs in the long run.
