Jaguar Land Rover sales up 10% in October

Jaguar Land Rover has revealed another rise in sales for October 2012, selling 10 per cent more cars than a year ago.

Jaguar Land Rover has reported sales of 25,176 cars in October 2012, an increase of 10 per cent on last year, and sales for 2012 up by an impressive 35 per cent compared to the same period in 2011.

But those sales are really a game of two halves – Jaguar and Land Rover.

Land Rover are still powering on – despite the 2013 Range Rover not yet being available – with the Range Rover Sport, Discovery and Freelander holding up well – despite new models on the way – and the Range Rover Evoque still ploughing its own unique sales path. Land Rover’s sales were up 17 per cent on a year ago.

By contrast, Jaguar had a poor month.

Jaguar sales were down for October by 24 per cent, with just 3,235 cars sold worldwide. But there are reasons.

We covered many of those reasons when we reported on falling Jaguar sales last month, but one added factor was hurricane Sandy. Yes, hurricane Sandy didn’t hit the US until the end of October, but Jaguar dealers on the East Coast battened down the hatches for the last five retail days of the month so sales were affected.

There are other global reasons too – like China waiting for the 13MY XJs with the new, more tax efficient engines – but the key to Jaguar emulating Land Rover’s sales performance lies with new variants of existing models – like the XF Sportbrake and, we hope, an XJ Coupe and XF Coupe – and, to a degree, the new F-Type.

But the real sea change for Jaguar sales will only come when Jaguar gets its own Evoque – the new small Jaguar.