Tata JLR fears Tianjin blast impact on Q2 earnings

Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) today indicated that its second quarter earnings may take a hit from the deadly explosion at a Chinese port in August that killed over 170 people.

Thousands of JLR cars had been reportedly damaged in the chemical explosion at Tianjin port on August 12.

"Jaguar Land Rover had about 5,800 vehicles stored at the port of Tianjin at the time of the explosion and tragic loss of lives in August. Many of these vehicles were destroyed or damaged," the company said in a statement.

"Given the exceptional nature of this event, Jaguar Land Rover is still assessing the damages and it may be some time before the company knows what insurance and other recoveries will be. In these circumstances, there is likely to be a one-time exceptional charge in Q2 FY16 before any potential recoveries in subsequent quarters," added the statement, released ahead of next month's Q2 report for the months of July-September 2015.

Overall for the month of September, the firm highlighted retail sales of 47,634 vehicles, up 3% from a record September 2014 performance. The company sold 349,412 vehicles in the first nine months of 2015, in line with prior year.

Jaguar Land Rover's regional performance year-to-date shows 21% growth in Europe, 18% in North America and 15% in the UK, with Overseas down 12%. Sales in the China Region are down 29% year-to-date.

Andy Goss, JLR Group sales operations director said: "The all-new Jaguar XE and the all-new Discovery Sport continued to impress this month, retailing more than 13,000 vehicles in total.

"Sales in the UK, Europe and North America have shown impressive growth year-to-date and despite a challenging macro-economic environment, particularly in China, customer demand for both our Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles remains encouraging."

Jaguar delivered a "solid performance" in the month, selling 10,394 vehicles, up 22%. The increase reflects strong sales of the all-new Jaguar XE sports saloon in markets in which it has gone on sale since May, with China sales only starting in September and US sales starting in 2016.

Land Rover retailed 37,240 in September, down 1% year on year compared to a very strong September in 2014. The new Discovery Sport is outselling by 30% the Freelander it replaced and Range Rover and Range Rover Sport were up 6% and 11% respectively.

Jaguar Land Rover said it remains "confident about the future" and in the second half of FY16 plans to continue to build on the successful launches of the Land Rover Discovery Sport, the Jaguar XE and the new Jaguar XF, as well as launch the new 16 Model Year Range Rover Evoque and Jaguar XJ, followed by the recently unveiled Jaguar F-Pace in late Q4 FY16.