INDIA’S top vehicle maker Tata Motors yesterday reported a nearly fourfold increase in annual profit, boosted by booming sales and strong demand for British brands Jaguar and Land Rover.
Net profit was `92.7bn ($2.04bn/ £1.24bn) for the year to the end of March 2011, up from `25.7bn in the previous year, the company said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Total sales rose 24.2 per cent to nearly 1.1 million units, while revenues jumped 33 per cent to 1.26 trillion rupees in the last financial year.
Jaguar and Land Rover saw improved sales, with demand for luxury cars rising in key markets such as the US, Europe, Russia and China as they recover from the global economic crisis.
Jaguar Land Rover net profit for the fiscal year touched £1.04bn on revenues of £9.91bn ($16bn), the company said, without giving comparative year-earlier data.
Sales of JLR cars rose 25 per cent from a year earlier to 243,621.
The two British brands have become important growth drivers for Tata Motors, recording six successive quarters of profit after the Indian conglomerate bought them from Ford for $2.3bn in 2008.
“We are very optimistic about Jaguar Land Rover in terms of volume growth,” JLR’s chief executive Ralf Speth told a news conference in Mumbai.
“There is a very clear demand for our cars from developed markets,” said Del Sehmar, spokesman for Jaguar Land Rover India, adding that JLR now had its “best product line-up ever”.
Tata Motors, part of the tea-to-steel Tata Group conglomerate, opened its first assembly plant in India for Jaguar Land Rover cars today.
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