Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Saturday reported a 12.1 percent drop in retail sales at 5,08,659 units for the financial year 2019-20, the automaker said.
The automaker’s total retail sales in the fourth quarter of the earlier financial year were at 1,09,869 vehicles, dropping 30.9 per cent as compared with the January-March period of the financial year 2018-19, the automaker said.
According to the release, despite the increase of coronavirus crisis, retail sales of the new Range Rover Evoque increased 24.7 per cent year-on-year and sales of the all-electric Jaguar I-PACE showed increase of 40 per cent.
Sales of the company were impacted throughout all regions, including North America, China and the UK, in the previous financial year because of the coronavirus crisis, it added.
“2019-20 has been a year of unprecedented disruption for the automotive sector. Despite the impact of regulatory change, moving consumer tastes, Brexit and ongoing trade tensions, sales for JLR were showing improvement until the coronavirus pandemic hit in the fourth quarter,” said JLR Chief Commercial Officer Felix Brautigam.
In the view of the continued coronavirus crisis, JLR has temporarily suspended production at its plants outside China.
The automaker will be reporting audited results for the financial year ended March 31 at a later date but finished this financial year with 3.6 billion pounds ($4.49 billion) of cash and short-term investments and an undrawn revolving credit facility of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.37 billion).
