“Tata Motors has a long-term plan to re-establish Land Rover as the benchmark brand of the SUV market. Moving forward, we plan to exploit our specialist credentials in a market populated by generalists,” said Mr John Edwards, Global Brand Director of Land Rover.
He was speaking to a group of journalists who had been invited to the company's Gaydon facility last week. “We are investing more than we ever have in product and market development. This is unprecedented in our history,” he added.
Tata Motors had acquired Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion in June 2008. It is now gearing up for local assembly of Land Rover vehicles in Pune towards end-May. According to observers, this will help the company position itself aggressively as a premium sport-utility vehicle maker.
Land Rover's key products are the Defender, Freelander, Discovery and Range Rover. Brazil, Russia, India and China, which form the BRIC quartet, have been identified as its markets of the future. “We sell in over 170 countries worldwide of which 65 per cent are the mature markets and the balance taken up by emerging nations. We are well positioned to exploit the BRIC economies in the future,” Mr Edwards said.
It is likely that the proportion of sales between the mature and emerging markets could be more evenly balanced during the next five to ten years as the action shifts to China and the Asia-Pacific region. Latin America is also expected to account for a substantial chunk of sales in the near future.
It is here that the Range Rover Evoque, slated for a fourth-quarter debut this calendar, will play an important role. “It will help us deliver record sales in 2011 and is the first step in an ambitious growth plan. We are confident that it will bring new customers to the business,” he said.
The British company expects its Range Rover luxury range to grow by 35 per cent between now and 2017. Likewise, in the leisure category, the Discovery is projected to grow by 26 per cent during the same time-frame. There is also a strong likelihood of a smaller car coming in below the Freelander.
As for the utility segment, Land Rover expects sales of the Defender to increase by 25 per cent in 2017. Incidentally, it plans to replace the vehicle which has been around for six decades. “It is a great project we are working on to replace the Defender though this is still three to four years away,” Mr Edwards said.
The to-be-launched Evoque is ‘compact and clean' with 85 per cent of its parts recyclable. Said to be the most compact Range Rover to date, it has undergone extensive testing in different weather conditions across the world. Land Rover is upbeat on its prospects for India where it is scheduled to debut towards the end of this fiscal.