The two distinguished British automotive brands revered across the globe for their style and brand statement - Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) - officially hit the Indian shores, the home to their new owners - Tata Motors, today.
The launch in India bears special significance to both the brands which have only recently seen massive erosion in demand following the turbulence in the economic health globally.
To start with, both the brands will launch three models each from a exclusive company owned showroom in Worli, Mumbai. In fact, Land Rover has already accepted a booking for one of its models, said a senior executive from Land Rover.
To specify, Jaguar will introduce the XF, XFR and the XKR sedans while Land Rover will start its business with Discovery 3, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover sport utility vehicles. Being fully imported models, all the six cars carry a heavy price tag starting Rs 63 lakh and going up to Rs 92 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai).
Ratan N Tata, chairman, Tata Motors said: "The launch of Jaguar and Land Rover is something that is quite memorable in the context of our history and heritage of Tata Motors. This is a company that belongs to us and we are proud of it."
JLR sales operations will be carried out only from the Mumbai outlet for the time being. The company will take a call on the speed of the adding more sales outlets across the country on the basis of the demand for both models.
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Thane-based Navnit Motors who have been importing Land Rovers since the past 12 years will now sell Jaguars also through a new outlet in Bandra, Mumbai. The Thane outlet, which sells the entire range of Land Rovers with an average sales of 8-10 units every month, will now operate as a service and spares outlet.
Given the uncertainty clouding the Indian automotive market, the company refused to provide any guidance on sales target it hopes to achieve in the country.
David Smith, CEO, Jaguar and Land Rover said: "We believe the Indian market holds significant growth potential in the long term. Although the market in India is not very huge but we have seen excellent growth in the Russia and China we are keen to add India to that list."
Meanwhile, on the issue to a pending guarantee from the UK government for the loan of about Rs 2,700 crore from the European Investment Bank (EIB), Tata said, "We are in talks with the UK government and we are hoping that we will find a solution so that we see ourselves out of this downturn. It is extremely important to find a solution. We are also working out on whether the UK government will have any representative for JLR that would commensurate their guarantee approval."
Tata Motors is also planning to leverage the technological expertise of JLR into its own range of vehicles through sharing of intellectual property rights (IPR) as the company considers that the two brands together have 'tremendous capabilities'.
Furthermore, the company has strictly kept the two brands as separate products from the Tata Motors stable and does not plan to have any dilution of the same. More so Tata Motors will refrain from tapping into the dealer infrastructure set up of JLR of the United States.
Tata added, "We never tried to merge JLR with Tata Motors, but overtime the two brands will have some resemblance, including dealing with customers, spares, commonalised vendors and customer relations. However there are no plans to leverage the US foothold of JLR for the Tata Motors brands."
Tata Motors has arranged finance from Tata Capital and is also holding talks with ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank for the two elite brands.