Increased production of JLR's most profitable models boosted its global sales – and therefore its revenue – in the first three months of the 2024/25 financial year.
Range Rover and Range Rover Sport wholesale volumes (ie sales to dealers) increased 22% and 46%, thanks to the opening of a new body shop at Solihull.
JLR said its most profitable models – which also include the Land Rover Defender – will be prioritised for production slots as it continues with its value-over-volume strategy.
This will be boosted by the arrival of the limited-run, £150k Defender Octa and much-anticipated Range Rover Electric – for which there is now a waiting list of more than 39,000.
The Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender accounted for 68% of total wholesale volume, which grew by 5% year on year to 97,755.
Those models also made up 59%, or 65,600, of the 111,180 retail sales (ie dealer sales to customers).
These sales (which include those made in China by JLR's joint venture with Chery) were up 9% on the first quarter of 2023/24 (93,253).
Looking at individual markets, retail sales in the quarter were up 43% in North America, 14% in the UK and 4% in Europe.
However, sales for both wholesale and retail were down 11% and 3% respectively on the previous quarter.
Still, these figures set the stage for what could be a post-Covid record year for JLR, which has been hit with a number of struggles, such as supply constraints, since 2020.
These struggles were illustrated by the company's 215,000-order waiting list at the end of 2022.
JLR will release its full Q1 financial results in the coming weeks.
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