Jaguar Land Rover to launch 10 products in fiscal 2019

British luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover on Tuesday announced it would launch as many as 10 products, either brand new or facelifts and iterations of existing brands, in the financial year 2018-19.

"We thank our customers for their continued patronage and enthusiasm for the two iconic brands, Jaguar and Land Rover. The customers gave us a huge thumbs up for some of the new products launched such as the fifth-generation all-new Land Rover Discovery and the New Range Rover Velar," said Rohit Suri, president and managing director, Jaguar Land Rover India. "Other nameplates such as Jaguar XE, XF and F-PACE as well as Land Rover Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque continued their winning streak with their popularity index rising exponentially with the customers."

JLR India ended FY 17-18 with a 83 per cent growth in sales at 4 609 units but remains some distance behind the three luxury car makers Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi. In calendar year 2017, Mercedes Benz held the top spot in the luxury car market in the country with sales of 15,300 units followed by BMW at 9,800 units and Audi at 7,876 units. JLR had sold 3,954 units during the year.

The overall luxury car segment had grown at nearly 17 per cent, the fastest in five years at just under 40,000 units. The growth had come despite disruptions like the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax where duties on luxury cars were initially lowered for a period of two months, only to be hiked thereafter.

Companies have repeatedly complained about inconsistent tax rates and lobbied for more liberal taxation for luxury cars in India. Taxes on luxury cars are one of the highest in the world, especially for those that are imported as fully built units. 

"GST is a significant reform that the country needed, and we appreciate the government s efforts for a smooth transition. However, to operate in any market, carmakers need reasonable tax rates," Suri had said in January.

"Current GST tax rates at 48 per cent for sedans and 50 per cent for SUVs in the premium segment are extremely high. To help expand the market and generate more jobs in this segment of the auto industry, we would urge the government to not only reduce these taxes to reasonable levels, include left out taxes such as road tax etc. within the GST regime, but also ensure stabilisation/longer term policies and tax regimes."