British brands help Tata Motors post 1.5bn pounds profits
Booming Chinese demand for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) helped Indian company Tata Motors post record high sales, increasing pre-tax profits by a third to 1.5 billion pounds, up from 1.12billion pounds in the previous year.
Strong demand from China and other emerging markets saw the vehicle sales of the Midlands-based manufacturer grow by 29.1 per cent to 314,433 and revenues jumped 37 per cent to 13.5 billion pounds.
Given the strong demand for its Range Rover Evoque, a compact 4X4 vehicle, JLR is planning to create thousands of more jobs in the UK to help cope with it.
From Tata Motor's portfolio, Land Rover sold the majority of vehicles at 260,394, while Jaguar made sales of 54,039.
On a quarterly basis, JLR saw the number of cars sold jump up 48 per cent to 98,000 year on year with pre-tax profits for the three months ended March 31, 2012 rising from 299 million pounds to 530 million pounds year-on-year, while revenues doubled to 4.14 billion pounds.
The company is still awaiting regulatory approval from China for an agreement between it and local car maker Chery Automobile to manufacture vehicles for the Chinese market.
The UK remains JLR's biggest market for retail sales, up 3.2 per cent to 60,000 while the other two major China and North America also witnessed major growth. Sales in China have increased by 19 per cent and now account for nearly onefifth of the cars sold by the company.
Despite turmoil in global markets, retail volumes of the company witnessed 27 per cent growth in Europe, 29 per cent in Asia Pacific and 39 per cent in the rest of the world.
The impressive performance underlines the resurgent fortunes of the UK's car manufacturing industry, which is now exporting more in value terms than it imports for the first time since the 1970s.
The strong results at JLR boosted Tata Motors' overall performance. The group grew its profits by 46 per cent to 1.5 billion pounds, while revenues were up 36 per cent to 18.9 billion pounds.
Roger Maddison, national officer of the Unite union, said JLR's success was 'a testament to the hard work and sacrifices of its UK workforce'.
He recalled that during the 2008 credit crunch the workers agreed to 70 million pounds of savings to support the company during the downturn.
Source: Britain News.Net
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