Jaguar Land Rover’s sales fall 5% on chip shortages

Jessica Thompson

Jaguar Land Rover’s global vehicle sales fell 4.9 percent to 88,121 in the quarter ended Sept 30 compared with the same period last year, after the company continued to be affected by semiconductor supply problems.

In a statement JLR said the lower sales resulted from a “lower than expected supply of specialized chips from one supplier which could not be readily re-sourced in the quarter.”

The automaker’s financial performance was “mitigated partially by further prioritization of production to the highest margin products,” it said, without releasing figures.

JLR said it will report detailed quarterly finances in the first half of November. The company indicated that it “expects free cash flow to be near break-even despite the lower-than-expected wholesale volumes.”

The automaker added that it expected positive free cash-flow in the second half of its fiscal year, which ends March 31 2023, driven by an “improvement in wholesale volumes.”

Land Rover remains JLR’s top-selling brand. During the quarter Land Rover sales, including Range Rover models, fell 3.6 percent to 70,781. Jaguar sales were 17,340, down 9.9 percent.

JLR’s focus on higher margin models in the quarter meant that the Land Rover Defender large SUV was the company’s best-selling model for the quarter with sales of 16,892, beating the Range Rover Evoque compact SUV in second with sales of 16,255.

The company’s highest priced model, the new Range Rover large SUV, was third with sales of 10,717.

China was the company’s biggest market in the quarter with retail sales of 25,518, which accounted for 29 percent of the brand’s total retail sales.

JLR has suffered a string of quarterly losses as supply chain issues and problems ramping up production of its profitable Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models cut revenue and increased costs.

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