Jaguar Land Rover overcomes recent losses to make £435m profit in first financial quarter

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced it made £435m in profit between April and June in the first financial quarter.

Just a year ago JLR was still suffering heavy losses, but says it’s managed to achieve high profitability through ‘favourable volume [of high-margin products like the Range Rover], mix, pricing and foreign exchange revaluation offset partially by higher inflation and supplier claims’.

The £435m profit before tax figure is up nearly £1bn on the first financial quarter of 2023, as well as a £67m increase on JLR’s performance between January and March this year.

The British brand sold 93,523 cars in the three months up until June – a 30 per cent increase on the previous year – with revenues of £6.9bn up 57 per cent on the same period in 2022.

JLR says it had orders totalling 185,000 at the end of June, down from 200,000 in March 2023, though many of its models still have lengthy waiting lists. The Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender, its three most profitable cars, also account for 76 per cent of orders.

Adrian Mardell, who has been acting as interim chief executive of JLR since November 2022 following the sudden departure of Thierry Bollore, has also been officially named as the firm’s new boss. Richard Molyneux has also been confirmed as JLR’s new chief financial officer.

Mardell said: “I am pleased to report a third consecutive quarter of strengthening financial performance for JLR. We have had a strong start to the financial year and delivered our highest production levels in nine quarters and our highest Q1 cash flow on record.

“This is a testament to the thousands of determined people in the business working tirelessly to deliver every aspect of our Reimagine strategy.”

It follows last week’s announcement from JLR’s parent company Tata Motors that it would build a new £4bn gigafactory in Somerset that can supply Jaguar and Land Rover models with a ‘stable and secure supply of battery cells to electrify JLR’s next generation vehicles’. Production is set to start in 2026.