Annual sales down 5.8pc for Jaguar Land Rover

The luxury car manufacturer, which has its engine manufacturing centre at the i54 north of Wolverhampton, sold 578,915 vehicles in 128 countries in 2018-2019 – down from 614,309 in 2017-2018.

The news came as the engine factory and other car production plants began a one-week shutdown due to uncertainty over Brexit.

JLR sales in March were 76,895, which were 8.2 per cent down on a year before.

It was not all bad news in the annual figures with Jaguar achieving record sales.

There were180,198 Jaguars sold – a rise of 3.2 per cent on 2017-2018 and sales were up 0.2 per cent to 24,262 last month.

Land Rover annual sales fell 9.3 per cent to 398,717 and the March figure was down 11.4 per cent on the year at 52,633.

JLR sold 118,108 cars overall in the UK in the year– an 8.4 per cent rise. The E-PACE became Jaguar’s best-seller at 11,142, with F-PACE also showing strong sales. The Discovery Sport topped Land Rover sales at 19,569.

Felix Brautigam, JLR chief commercial officer, said: “Despite a challenging time for us and the automotive industry, we were able to deliver growth in three of our five regions. In North America, the UK and overseas we posted solid growth on the back of strong demand for our exciting product line-up, achieving record sales and outpacing industry trends in many markets.

"Although the trading environment in Europe was weak due to uncertainty over diesel and the transition to WLTP regulations, our European teams also held their competitive position.

"Clearly we were disappointed by the lower sales in China. However, together with our retailers we decided not to push sales ‘at any cost’ to ensure that our brands remain desirable.

"Mid-term we remain optimistic about the region, particularly as we are starting to see results of our local turnaround strategy, with retails expected to stabilise in the next few months and grow thereafter.

“Jaguar is going from strength to strength, achieving its best ever full year of sales. Records for the brand in Europe and overseas were driven by strong retails of the award winning all-electric I-PACE and the sporty, compact E-PACE, which has been well received across all regions.

“Although we saw a dip at Land Rover due to China market performance and the phase out of older models, we are pleased with the sales of the newer vehicles and excited by the reception for the all-new Range Rover Evoque, with sales ramping up.

"Customer and media reviews of the latest generation of this compact yet sophisticated and refined Range Rover are extremely positive and we look forward to its China launch at the Shanghai Auto Show.”

JLR is the UK’s largest automotive manufacturer and from 2020 all new vehicles will offer the option of electrification.

Rawdon Glover, JLR UK managing director, said: “Despite the headwinds facing the automotive industry, I’m glad to see Jaguar Land Rover’s UK strategy is having the desired effect. Investment into the right products at the right time has seen us steadily grow our market share and our sales in what has been a declining market."

Land Rover sales in the UK were up 3.5% year-on-year, rising from 76,851 to 79,504.

JLR has invested more than £1 billion into the engine manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton and its range of Ingenium petrol and diesel engines.