KOLKATA: Luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a subsidiary of Tata Motors, is expecting a drop in growth this year due to the hike in customs duty on components and imposition of high GST rates on the premium segment, managing director of JLR India Rohit Suri said.
The impact of customs duty hike on parts and kits by five per cent would raise prices ranging between 3.5 per to five per cent across the various models of JLR, he said.
“The hike in customs duty hike as announced in the budget was really disappointing. This will have an adverse impact on the growth in 2017,” Suri said.
“We were expecting a double digit growth in 2018. But the customs duty hike would depress it down to a single digit”, he said.
In 2017 JLR sold around 4000 cars in India, which was 49 per cent year-on-year growth over 2016, Suri told reporters on the sidelines of a showroom launch here.
The proportion of Jaguar sedan and SUV Land Rover sales was almost 50:50, he said.
Regarding GST, he said it was 50 per cent for SUVs and 48 per cent for sedans inclusive of cess. “This too is very high”, Suri said.
Spanning across 11 models of Jaguar and Land Rover models in India, the prices range between Rs 40 lakh to Rs 1.6 crore, depending on the model.
JLR, which started operations in India four years ago, had a low-volume manufacturing plant in Pune and was pitted against other luxury brands like Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Porsche. It had a market share of 11 per cent in the category.
Asked about the probable launch of electric vehicles in India from the JLR stable, Suri said “In India, we have to see whether the infrastructure support is there, like charging points”.
JLR already has the technology and a vehicle, I-Pace, was just showcased in the Geneva Motor Show.-PTI
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