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Tata Faces Major Work on Jaguar, Land Rover
DETROIT — At last, India's Tata Motors has Jaguar and Land Rover in its grasp. With the announcement that Ford would sell Tata the British brands for $2.3 billion, now comes the real work of healing the English patients.
In addition to stopping the flow of red ink at Jaguar, Tata also must figure out how to halt Jaguar's sales slide. Edmunds.com's analysis shows Jaguar's U.S. sales have nosedived from 61,204 cars in 2002 to a scant 15,647 sold in 2007. No brand has experienced even close to Jaguar's 75-percent plummet, Edmunds' analysis shows.
And the slide continues. Jaguar sold a measly 664 cars in January — about 10 percent of a good month in 2002. February sales wiggled above the 1,000-unit mark, but still came below the awful year-ago February. For the year so far, Jaguar has sold only about 1,700 vehicles.
The sales decline came as Jaguar offered increasingly richer incentives, which were at a reasonable $2,841 for every Jaguar sold in 2002, skyrocketing to among the highest incentives in the industry of close to $7,000 a vehicle in 2006, falling back some in 2007.
Jaguar's sad performance comes at a time when luxury car sales around the globe are booming, especially in markets like Brazil, Russia and China as well as Tata's home market of India where newfound wealth is buying luxury automobiles.
Land Rover's U.S. sales numbers are healthier, closing 2007 with sales about 10,000 units higher than in 2002. But costly incentives to sell Land Rovers are edging higher. Land Rover's future is tricky since it currently sells only sport-utilities, the category hurt most by skyrocketing fuel prices. As Land Rover considers adding a crossover to its mix, it needs to avoid the path of Jeep, which added soft-riders to its rugged Trail-rated portfolio, damaging its image — damage Chrysler's new management wants to undo.
What this means to you: Time for the managers and executives to roll up their sleeves. Many hard decisions await them. — Michelle Krebs, Senior Editor, Industry
In addition to stopping the flow of red ink at Jaguar, Tata also must figure out how to halt Jaguar's sales slide. Edmunds.com's analysis shows Jaguar's U.S. sales have nosedived from 61,204 cars in 2002 to a scant 15,647 sold in 2007. No brand has experienced even close to Jaguar's 75-percent plummet, Edmunds' analysis shows.
And the slide continues. Jaguar sold a measly 664 cars in January — about 10 percent of a good month in 2002. February sales wiggled above the 1,000-unit mark, but still came below the awful year-ago February. For the year so far, Jaguar has sold only about 1,700 vehicles.
The sales decline came as Jaguar offered increasingly richer incentives, which were at a reasonable $2,841 for every Jaguar sold in 2002, skyrocketing to among the highest incentives in the industry of close to $7,000 a vehicle in 2006, falling back some in 2007.
Jaguar's sad performance comes at a time when luxury car sales around the globe are booming, especially in markets like Brazil, Russia and China as well as Tata's home market of India where newfound wealth is buying luxury automobiles.
Land Rover's U.S. sales numbers are healthier, closing 2007 with sales about 10,000 units higher than in 2002. But costly incentives to sell Land Rovers are edging higher. Land Rover's future is tricky since it currently sells only sport-utilities, the category hurt most by skyrocketing fuel prices. As Land Rover considers adding a crossover to its mix, it needs to avoid the path of Jeep, which added soft-riders to its rugged Trail-rated portfolio, damaging its image — damage Chrysler's new management wants to undo.
What this means to you: Time for the managers and executives to roll up their sleeves. Many hard decisions await them. — Michelle Krebs, Senior Editor, Industry
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