MUMBAI: A poor show by its UK arm — the Ralf Speth -led
Jaguar Land Rover
(
JLR
) — pulled
Tata Motors into the red for the first time in three years. The Indian automaker posted a loss of Rs 1,863 crore in the June quarter of fiscal 2019 as opposed to a profit of Rs 3,200 crore in the year-ago period.
JLR reported a loss of 210 million pounds as it sold fewer vehicles in its biggest market China due to changes in import duties, as well as in its European market over diesel concerns. In China, dealers had delayed purchases of JLR vehicles to take benefit of the reduction of import duties from 25 per cent to 10 per cent that came into effect after the end of the reporting quarter, that is July 1.
In other markets including Europe, JLR had taken a planned dealer stock reduction as it faced uncertainty over diesels along with Brexit and additional diesel taxes in the UK.
All these factors also resulted in a 7 per cent fall in JLR’s quarterly revenues to 5.2 billion pounds. JLR contributes nearly 90 per cent to Tata Motors’ revenues. The Indian company reported 14 per cent higher revenues of Rs 67,081 crore during the period under review.