JLR hits quarterly profit record as Range Rover sales soar
Record wholesales for Range Rover models, including spike for SV variants, drive £627 million profit for final quarter of 2023
JLR, formerly known as Jaguar Land Rover, recorded its highest quarterly profit in six years in the final three months of 2023, helped by a record period for Range Rover sales.
The company has reported revenue of £7.4 billion for the three months running from October to December, which helped it to record a profit before tax and exceptional items (PBT) of £627million – the highest quarterly profit JLR has recorded since the final quarter of the 2017 financial year.
JLR’s financial year runs from April, and with one quarter remaining the firm has so far recorded a PBT of £1.4 billion, built on £21.1bn of revenue – a record for the first nine months of a financial year.
JLR says that its profits for the quarter were driven by wholesales of 101,000 units, its highest total for 11 quarters and a 27 per cent year-on-year rise.
That total included record wholesales for Range Rover models – the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Range Rover Evoque and Range Rover Velar – and a huge year-on-year growth in the sales of top-spec Range Rover SV machines from 1909 a year ago to 3637 in the year-to-date. The average price for those models is £202,000.
JLR boss Adrian Mardell called the results “outstanding”, attributing the success to “our talented and dedicated people, who work relentlessly to bring our exceptional modern luxury cars to the market.”
Mardell added that the results showed the impact of the Reimagine plan to reinvigorate the company and prepare it for an electric future. JLR added that work was currently underway on the new £60 million BEV underbody line in Solihull, while work on production lines for electric drive units in Wolverhampton were “progressing well” and a new body shop in Halewood for the electric EMA platform models was close to being finished.
JLR’s electrification strategy will gather pace this year, with the new Range Rover Electric due to go on sale, and more information being released about the reinvented Jaguar brand. The firm added that Range Rover Electric prototypes were currently on the road, while medium-size SUV prototypes and new Jaguar prototypes were in development.