Jaguar Land Rover swings into loss as sales fall 13%

Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Land Rover continue to enjoy strong growth in China and the U.S.

Jaguar Land Rover has fallen into a loss for the three months to September 30.

Sales in the car manufacturer fell sharply, resulting in a £90 million loss for the third quarter of 2018.

Jaguar blamed Brexit uncertainty, lower sales in China and uncertainty over diesel in Europe.

The company, owned by Tata Steel, reported revenues of £5.6 billion, which is down 10.9% year-on-year, alongside EBITDA of £511 million.

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In order to swing out of the loss, the car manufacturer has announced plans to carry out a “far-reaching” cost-cutting programme. Plans include reducing spending by £500 million this year and improve profitability by £2.5 billion.

“In the latest quarterly period, we continued to see more challenging market conditions. Our results were undermined by slowing demand in China, along with continued uncertainty in Europe over diesel, Brexit and the WLTP changeover,” said Jaguar’s chief executive, Ralf Speth.

“Given these challenges, Jaguar Land Rover has launched far-reaching programmes to deliver cost and cashflow improvements. Together with our ongoing product offensive and calibrated investment plans, these efforts will lay the foundations for long-term sustainable, profitable growth,” he added.

Amid the Brexit uncertainty, Jaguar warned in September that “tens of thousands” of jobs are at risk if Theresa May fails to reach a Brexit deal.

“Six months from Brexit and uncertainty means that many companies are being forced to make decisions about their businesses that will not be reversed, whatever the outcome, just to survive,” said the chief executive at the government’s electric car summit in Birmingham last month.

“Brexit is due to happen on the March 29 next year. Currently, I do not even know if any of our manufacturing facilities in the UK will be able to function on March 30.”

The group sold 129,887 vehicles in the three months to October.

Shares in Tata Steel (NSE: TATASTEEL) are -2.04% (1324GMT).