Anish Raghunandan
As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode and we will be taking questions via the Teams platform. The same is already open to you to submit the questions.
You are requested to mention your name and the name of organization while submitting the questions. I now hand over to Mr.
Dhiman Gupta to take over. Over to you, sir.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Anish. Another quarter of strong brand and product-led actions across the group.
We continue to strengthen and augment our EV portfolio in India with the launch of the refreshed Tiago and Sierra.ev, which has helped improve our EV market position over the last several quarters. At JLR, we will continue to see the step-up in launch activities towards the introduction of four BEVs over the coming quarters.
Next slide, please. TMPV delivered revenues of ₹95,800 crore for the quarter, EBIT margins at 2.4%, and PBT for the quarter stood at ₹1,600 crore, down on a year-on-year basis.
Richard and I will talk about it in greater detail in the subsequent sections, but in summary, JLR wholesales were down in part due to the temporary supply constraints and the Middle East conflict. In addition, profitability was impacted as market conditions pushed VME up year-on-year, partially offset by favorable structural cost and other one-offs.
The domestic business delivered strong revenue growth. However, elevated commodities moderated improvement in margins.
Next slide, please. Consolidated net debt stood at ₹42,000 crore at the end of the quarter.
India business continues to remain net cash positive, while net debt at JLR was £3.6 billion. Richard, if you could take the next section, please?
Richard Molyneux
Yes, of course. If you could move to the next chart.
Dhiman Gupta
Next slide.
Richard Molyneux
Thank you. Look, times at JLR are simultaneously both difficult and exciting.
Exciting in terms of the many amazing cars we're about to launch. Difficult in that our financial results are not as good as the same period last year.
You can see this below. Wholesales were down about 10% year-over-year.
This is partly caused by the run-out of legacy cars as we move to the launch of the new Jaguars, but also a fire at a supplier, I'll explain more later. This drove revenue to £6 billion with EBIT of 2.8%, a positive PBT of £109 million, but a significant cash outflow.
It should be recognized that our first-quarter results are typically our weakest. In cash, in particular, suffers from a seasonal working capital swing.
The results, whilst weaker than we would have liked, are not inconsistent with our full-year guidance. It will, however, require strong performance for the remainder of the year.
Next chart. I won't go through this in detail.
As per usual, this is the headlines for your future reference. Next chart.
Our wholesales, as I've mentioned, were down about 8,000, and about 3,000 lower than we'd internally planned, as we run out old Jaguar models. Defender remains amazingly strong, up again in wholesales, whilst Range Rover and Range Rover Sport were the cars impacted by the fire at a chassis component supplier that happened early in the quarter and knocked out several days of production that we were not able to recover.
Discovery and Jaguar, as mentioned, are the two brands we're currently reimagining. On retails, you can see those below, were down 14.5k year-over-year, and over 5,000 of this is Jaguar run-out or Middle East conflict-driven.
In addition, we did have some temporary quality holds right at the end of the quarter, and we deliberately balanced out of lower-margin products to improve mix. Next chart.
Regionally, looking at wholesales, the US and MENA are flat year-over-year. Not surprisingly, the market with the biggest correction is China, down 25% year-over-year.
All competitors are finding the China market extremely difficult and we're also impacted. Our focus there is on keeping discipline on retailer stock days, driving demand generation innovatively, and running out the last legacy cars to free our retailers from the associated financial burden.
We have to get them and us focusing on the big three that drive their returns and our returns. Next chart.
This walks our PBT from the £351 million last year to the £109 million this year. Volume and mix actually wasn't too bad given the wholesale drop, as we balanced more into Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Defender, which are now 81% of our sales.
Tariffs or US duties actually show as favorable, as the comparable quarter last year was the one where we paid tariffs at 27.5% before the trade deals came into force. Equally, emissions show as negative this quarter versus the big accrual release that we had in Q1 last year.
VME, in the second big column, is significantly higher. It's now at 7.1%.
China is the most difficult market year-over-year for us, given economic and retailer stress, and also the effect of the new luxury taxes that came into force after Q1 last year. The US is also remaining high in terms of VME, particularly versus a quarter one last year where we deliberately kept sales allowances low in response to the tariff implementation.
In the next column, industrial operations were hit by higher commodity prices, and the only other significant item is FX or commodities, which is largely the non-repeat of an £83 million favorable revaluation gain in Q1 last year, and also unrealized commodity hedge losses, as aluminum and palladium reduced from peaks that they had right at the start of the quarter. Next chart, please.
Walking on to free cash flow, we did generate over half a billion pounds cash profit after tax. As we near the peak of our investment cycle, it gives a free cash flow pre-working capital of negative £352 million.
Working capital, reflecting a naturally high production and low sales quarter, has built up, though should largely reverse out through the year. For reference, Q4 last year, working capital was £814 million favorable.
In the quarter, post-working capital, our free cash flow was just under £1 billion negative. Next chart.
With six vehicle launches approaching, four imminently and two in the pipeline, our investment levels remain high, as do our capitalization levels, which was 74% in the quarter. Over the balance of the year, spend is likely to remain similar, but with a shift from engineering to capital as the new facilities come on line and we start series production of those four cars I mentioned.
Right. Then let's move on to a business update.
Next chart. The challenges our industry face globally are intensifying, but they're well known.
I've explained them before, I won't repeat them here. What I want to focus on is our response.
As explained at Investor Day, we know we have to intensify our efforts on costs, but we also know this is an industry where you cannot shrink or save yourself to success. You have to grow and leverage scale.
We're setting a goal of 10% revenue growth per annum and focusing on the US market for a significant part of that. Remember, the US has 40% of the world's millionaires, has a propensity to SUVs where we're strong, and has a strong affinity to our brands, Range Rover, Defender, and Jaguar in particular.
On costs, our focus is the ex-works cost of our cars, warranty, and our fixed-cost base. Our intent is to save £1.7 billion in this space.
We'll give you a much more detailed update as part of our Q2 results. All of this is aimed bottom right, at building even greater resilience into our business model to allow us to navigate whatever lies ahead.
On the next page. You can see an indication of the progress we're making in our strategy.
If you look at the bottom left-hand side, this is the trend in our average sale price, continually rising and set to rise further as we launch our new products. Should be in 18 months or so well north of £80,000 per car and therefore north of $100,000 per car.
In the middle, you can see our progress on customer metrics via the J.D. Power APEAL study.
Defender wins its segment, and JLR ranked third out of 18 manufacturers. On the right-hand side, probably one of the key metrics of luxury across all consumer segments is the ability to hold value.
Range Rover and Defender are number one in their segments in the States, with Range Rover and Range Rover Sport number one in the UK. Our existing cars are a great embodiment of our strategy.
Next chart. It's not just the existing cars.
After a relatively fallow period, our product range is about to get a major uplift. Four imminent launches, two more in the way.
The four are below, in the last stages of testing or in pre-build down the production lines. Range Rover and Range Rover Sport electric come later this year, the radical Range Rover GT, which is bottom left, and Jaguar Type 01 early next year.
The cars are fantastic. The excitement of the teams is electric.
I'm sure they'll help us drive both the top line and the bottom line of our company results in the years to come. With that, I will hand back.
Thank you for your attention.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. Anish, next slide, please.
The demand environment in India has remained robust, and the strong traction that we saw on the back of new launches and refreshes over the last two quarters has continued to play out. We saw a 46% jump in volumes year-on-year.
Our monthly volume run-rate used to average about 45,000 to 50,000 not so long time back, and it has now consistently scaled to greater than 60,000, and perhaps could have been more if it hadn't been for some of the supply-side constraints we have had to contend with. A nearly 2% improvement in market share on a year-on-year basis, establishing us as a firm #2 player on registrations.
The Mid Asia crisis has clearly altered consumer preferences towards greener fuels, and you see the clear shift in EV mix up to 19% in Q1, and actually we exited at 23% in June and July. Next slide, please, Anish.
More on EVs, volumes have doubled over the last one year, and at June exit was tracking 15,000 a month. Over the last one year, we have proactively refreshed and augmented our portfolio, which has helped maintain and grow our market share upwards of 40% despite increased competition in this space.
Next slide, please, Anish. India business revenues at ₹18,000 crore, grew 65% year-on-year, but the gains were nearly entirely offset by the steep commodity increases we saw on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
EBITDA margins were plattish at 4% year-on-year, with EBIT margins and PBT improving due to the higher scale of the business. Next slide, please.
We're going to focus on the EBITDA margin walk this quarter instead of the usual PBT walk, as the absolute movement we've seen this quarter does not really reflect some of the structural improvements we've seen in the business. While margins have remained flat at around 4%, we've had significant gains coming from fixed-cost leverage and another 2% material cost reductions, but it was entirely offset by 6% commodity impact we saw on a year-on-year basis.
The commodity impact in Q1 was 4.5%, and we're expecting another 3% plus residual impact to flow into Q2. We've already taken a 1% cumulative price increase across April and July, and while we will be taking calibrated increases through the rest of the year, a large part of the set-off for commodities will have to come through accelerated commercial reductions.
PLI accruals for the quarter was ₹313 crore, and came largely from Nexon EV and Harrier.ev. A refreshed portfolio and new launches are under various stages of certifications, which we should see materializing from Q3.
The combination of price increases, cost reductions, and PLI should see us step up margins in H2. Next slide, please.
CapEx at ₹1,300 crore for the quarter. This is still tracking last year's trends, but we will see it step up as we execute our next phase of growth in line with our Investor Day guidance.
Next slide, please. FCF at ₹1,100 crore for the quarter.
While the operating cash profits have been subdued due to the commodity impact, favorable working capital releases has helped us maintain strong liquidity for the business. Shailesh, if I could ask you to take the next two slides.
Shailesh Chandra
Yeah. Thank you, Dhiman.
Let me begin with a broader industry perspective in quarter one FY27. The passenger vehicle industry remained on a strong footing during the quarter, with volumes crossing 1.3 million units, which was supported by a healthy demand environment following the GST 2.0.
While the industry reported a robust growth of 24% year-on-year, it is important to recognize that part of this steep growth number also reflects a relatively low base in the corresponding period last year. While volumes will continue at a strong level throughout the year, growth rates are likely to moderate in H2 due to a higher base.
At the same time, the industry continues to see higher growth in greener powertrains, that is CNG and EV. The structural shift in the industry mix is gaining momentum, as EVs and CNG vehicles together now account for 31% of industry sales as in quarter one, highlighting the increasing pace of consumer adoption of these two tech.
In particular, EVs remain the fastest-growing segment in the industry, registering 77% year-on-year growth. EV penetration continues to increase every month, as the industry exited the quarter with 8% penetration in June '26.
This increasing mainstream adoption of EVs is also supported by greater participation by OEMs, also the expanding product choices and improving customer sentiments, and also the enabling policy environment. At the same time, the operating environment remains challenging.
Supply chain constraints persists in select areas, and commodity inflation continues to be a stress point across several key inputs. Dhiman already mentioned about the quarter one impact and what potentially we can see in quarter two.
These remain important areas of focus for the industry, and sustained actions will be required to mitigate their impact. Coming to our performance, quarter one has been a strong quarter for TMPV, with industry-beating growth across both PV and EV segments.
We delivered overall wholesale volumes of about 182,000 units, which was a year-on-year growth of 46%, nearly twice the pace of the broader industry growth. As a result, we further strengthened our position as the number two ranked player in the industry, improving our market share by 200 bps year-on-year to 14.3%.
Importantly, this performance has been broad-based, with strong demand across our key nameplates. In particular, Punch and Nexon emerged among the top three highest-selling models in India in quarter one.
We also strengthened our portfolio competitiveness through focused product launches. We launched the Tiago i-Space lift in May, which enhanced the styling and tech quotient, ensuring greater aspiration for the hatch segment.
In EVs, we launched the Tiago EV facelift, which strengthened the value proposition in the EV entry segment, and also launched the all-new Sierra EV to further expand our portfolio in a key high-growth space. These launches have been received very positively in the market, and have contributed to a healthy increase in bookings.
Coming to our EV performance, we delivered our highest-ever volumes of over 34,000 units in the quarter, and sustained market leadership position. Now, roughly 20% of our sales came from EVs in quarter one.
Actually, in July, it went up to 24%, and we have a strong EV order book as we scale up production. This momentum has continued into July, as we exceeded 15,000 EV units for the month, and increased our EV market share to over 43%.
Next slide. Looking ahead, our priorities remain clear and consistent.
Demand environment in the industry seems positive, and we see a clear opportunity to continue our industry-beating volume growth. At the same time, we must work on enhancing profitability through disciplined execution.
From a demand perspective, the outlook remains encouraging, supported by demand momentum we continue to see in the market, which will be further strengthened by the upcoming festive season. Our immediate focus will be to sustain growth momentum on the back of our healthy order pipeline, and in addition, we will continue to launch new product interventions, such as refreshes, in a timely manner to sustain customer traction.
We will also continue to capitalize on the industry's shift towards greener powertrains. We will take key actions in terms of product and front-end initiatives, through which we'll strengthen our market shares in these high-growth segments.
The third priority is to quickly alleviate supply-side constraints, which have been present in certain sections of our portfolio. We have already undertaken several debottlenecking actions and capacity expansion initiatives, particularly across some of the critical suppliers.
We have seen positive momentum on this front in the past few months, and we will continue to drive actions to ensure that we are able to service the customer demand more effectively. Enhancing our profitability will continue to be one of our central priorities.
The external environment has become more challenging due to elevated commodity levels. While these headwinds may persist in the near term, our focus remains firmly on mitigating their impact through levers that are within our control.
Accordingly, we'll accelerate cost-reduction initiatives across the value chain, and focus on expediting PLI for new products that we have launched. We will also undertake calibrated pricing actions wherever necessary, balancing market competitiveness with sustainable profitability.
In summary, we enter the coming quarters with a positive outlook. The market continues to offer attractive growth opportunities.
Customer adoption of green mobility also is accelerating, and our product portfolio continues to strengthen. While we remain conscious of supply chain and commodity-related challenges, our focus remains on disciplined execution and profitability enhancement.
These actions position us well to continue growing ahead of market while delivering sustainable value creation over the medium term. Back to you, Dhiman.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. Anish, if you could move to the last concluding slide before we move on to Q&A.
Implications from global geopolitical developments and the luxury segment trends continue to be a key vulnerable for us. This is an important transition year at JLR as it expands its portfolio into BEVs, with expected launch of the four exciting new products in the coming months.
In India, we focused on carrying forward the growth momentum, and we will remain financially prudent with increased focus on accelerated cost reduction and calibrated price increase for offsetting the ensuring commodity price impact. Should we move on to Q&A?
Richard, we'll start with you first with the question on JLR, and then there are a couple of questions there for Shailesh. The first one from Sridhar, Antique Stock Broking: You spoke about a couple of factors which impacted wholesale volumes in Q1.
I think the question is whether we are behind some of those temporary issues, and how do we look at volume recovery in Q2 and Q3? The second question: if you could also guide towards the production ramp-up plan for Jaguar Type 01?
Richard Molyneux
Yes, of course. The Middle East, if you look through the number set, it was relatively flat in terms of wholesales, but down about 1,400 units of retail during the quarter, as traffic through the retailer network was reduced, and also, to be honest, we had trouble getting some of the vehicles to the retailers anyway.
The world is slowly adjusting to the new situation in the US. We, along with other manufacturers, are finding new routes into the region that avoid us having to go through the Straits of Hormuz.
I think progressively the world will adjust, and obviously we all hope that at some stage soon the situation will normalize and we'll be able to use the routes that we were previously utilizing. I think, as I said, I think the world is adjusting to a new reality in the Middle East and adjusting relatively fast.
In terms of Jaguar wind-down, yes, Jaguar was about 1,500 units down versus last quarter in terms of wholesale. We are wholesaling the last vehicles that we have in stock over the next three to six months.
Then the new Jaguar Type 01, which, by the way, is absolutely fantastic, and we've just revealed some pictures of the interior, that will start production early next year. It is not going to have any material impact on wholesales for us in FY27.
It will come through in FY28 along with the biggest impact of the Range Rover GT. The supplier fire, yes, that's done.
That was early in the quarter. It knocked out our production facility in Solihull, which is the one that produced the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, for several days.
The issue is now fully resolved and, yeah, that's now ended.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. Shailesh, moving on to you now.
I think there are a couple of questions lined up on EV bookings, raw material prices, and price increases. I'll start with the first question is from Nishit from Axis.
Despite such strong raw material headwinds, we've only taken a 1% price increase. What do you see the price sensitivity that customers had despite demand being so strong?
Shailesh Chandra
No, it's a fair question. See, ideally we would have liked to have transferred all the price increase in the market, but unfortunately, we don't work in an absolute world where we have no relative measures or benchmarks to look at.
Unfortunately, every car that we have, we compare with the competitive set and what price increases they are taking, and therefore, we have to be around that to ensure that we don't lose on the competitiveness of each product. That has been broadly the reason why it has been 1% as of now.
From approach perspective or strategy perspective, we are very clear that to whatever extent we are able to accelerate and increase the cost-reduction effort, whatever residual is left, we will pass it on to the market. Therefore, you will see more frequent, but progressive price increases to ensure that we are able to compensate for the margin loss that we are suffering as of now.
Taking a steep increase at this stage will definitely impact the competitiveness less of volumes, and that's what we have to keep ourselves guarded. That's the only background of why we have taken 1%.
Dhiman Gupta
Shailesh, the next question: what are the inventory levels at the dealers and what is your outlook on production amongst the supply challenges?
Shailesh Chandra
Yeah. Inventory levels are right now around 30 days.
We had an increase last month, as we were able to produce slightly more. Now we have to significantly increase the inventory because these are not at comfortable levels ahead of the festive period.
We are really expediting our efforts on the supply chain side to ensure that ahead of the festive season we are able to build healthy stock for a high retail in October. We are, as compared to the production that we were able to do in April, May, and June, which was a lot affected because of labor issues as well as geopolitical issues, I think last month, if we had no rainfall issue in Sanand, where we lost five days of production, you would have seen a much better number than 63,000.
Hopefully, from this month we will be definitely seeing 65,000-plus production, more closer to 70,000 is what we are targeting for. In the coming months, it should be more closer to 70,000 is what we are trying to achieve.
Let's see. There are always surprises in the environment, and we'll deal with that.
Dhiman Gupta
Shailesh, I'll try staying with you for another two, three questions before I go back to Richard. The next question again from Kapil: what is the kind of volume growth and margin outlook that you can provide for FY27?
See,
Shailesh Chandra
so far in quarter one, and also I would say that if you take our growth even in last financial year, we were twice the industry growth rate. In quarter one, the industry grew by 24%, we grew by 46%.
We would like to keep that kind of momentum going forward. I would definitely be targeting higher double-digit growth in FY27.
Margin outlook, as I said, that we have to offset all kind of commodity increases that we are seeing through combination of price increase as well as cost reduction. We would try to neutralize the headwinds that we are facing through these two actions.
Dhiman Gupta
Shailesh, the next question, this one is on EVs. Is the EV booking on a rising trend even on a month-on-month basis from April, and what's the kind of inflows are you seeing now?
Shailesh Chandra
Yeah. It has been actually increasing because there have been new launches also, as you would have seen, and new refreshes which came after April also, Tiago EV, for example, and Sierra EV also got launched.
If I compare with actually the pre-Mid East crisis, which was Jan, Feb, whatever was the average bookings that we used to get, that has gone nearly 3.5 times of that. Of course, we are not able to supply even close to those numbers, but every month you would be seeing we are ramping up our capacities.
Say three, four months back we were doing about 9,000 a month production. Now last month we crossed 15,000, and hopefully in the coming months this should further increase.
We are trying to overcome the gap that we have as of now between the demand that we are getting and the supply.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. Kapil, your last question, I think I've already answered.
What was the price hike in Q2? We took a price hike of 0.5% each across April and July, and I think on the commodity pressure also I had mentioned it was 4.5% in Q1, and we are expecting another 3% hardening in quarter two.
Richard, I'll hand it back to you now for a couple of questions. One from Timothy City: has the JLR FY27 guidance been dropped or does it still stand?
With the focus on North America, do you intend to localize some production or do we assume lower margins on any incremental volumes that you sell through this?
Richard Molyneux
Okay. On the first point, I think I mentioned during what I covered.
The results in Q1 were not 100% where we wanted them. They're not inconsistent with our full-year guidance, and those results don't imply that we have a need to change that guidance.
On North America, look, at our scale, it doesn't make sense for us localizing existing production of existing vehicles into North America. For example, we sell circa 30,000 Defenders in the US each year, but we can never localize into a local plant in the US efficiently at 30,000 units, or even at 50,000 units.
Our approach to North America, and I think we announced earlier, is we've signed an MOU with Stellantis looking at producing vehicles which are specific to the US market in North America. That's our approach.
We know we need to get some production, let me say, the right side of the tariff barrier, but it makes no sense for us just duplicating production of our existing vehicles. We're going with new vehicles, new segments, Defender brand, US-produced.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. I'll ask you to take the next question too.
With all the road shows and marketing that we are doing towards the Type 01 model, can you give us any indication of what's the kind of response you've got so far?
Richard Molyneux
Big smiling faces. Everybody that sees the car, and particularly everybody that has the opportunity to drive it or get driven in it, comes out with an enormous smile.
It is really quite impressive. Our engineers have done a stunning job turning what is an exceptional design into a sports car of exceptional quality.
We're pretty happy with Type 01.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. The next question is also for you.
I think everyone's seen the kind of hardening of commodities in India, almost 4.5% this quarter, but I think you've not talked about any raw material impact at JLR. If you could give some color around it?
Richard Molyneux
Phew, I'm glad that was the question, because I thought why was JLR RM hit so low referring to me, Richard Molyneux. Why was our hit so low?
There's a couple of things. For us, the biggest exposures are aluminum and, let's say, palladium, copper, and a couple of the others.
Actually, in the quarter, aluminum prices came off. They were about $3,500 a ton at the end of March, they were about $3,150 a ton at the end of June.
Although they remain high during the quarter, some of our key commodities came down in price. We also have a hedging program on those, which mitigated any moves.
Also, though to be fair, some of our contracts react on a quarterly basis. We would expect to see some of our prices which are in Q2 reflecting the raw material prices in Q1.
I would expect to see a little bit of an extra hit in Q2 from that effect. That's fundamentally the logic there.
Aluminum, which is our biggest exposure because most of our car is aluminum rather than steel, actually came down during the quarter.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. I'm going to ask you to take the next question, too, from Kapil.
What is going to be the impact of rising EV mix on JLR margins? If you could throw some color whether they are going to be expected to be accretive or dilutive?
Richard Molyneux
Where we're looking at it at the moment, we expect them to be at least neutral. As I think I've mentioned, we're not launching mass-market EVs.
We're launching Range Rovers with an EV powertrain. Those EV powertrains are absolutely perfect for the cars that they represent.
A Range Rover is supposed to be quiet and powerful. That's exactly what the BEV is.
We're not pricing these at a discount. We expect to price them to be at least margin-neutral.
If you think of the EMA cars, these are the smaller cars, of which Range Rover GT is one, they are replacing vehicles which are at the end of their life and relatively low in terms of margin. Versus the cars that the Range Rover EV and the subsequent EMA cars would be compared to, I would expect again those to be at least neutral, if not accretive.
Dhiman Gupta
Just to add to that, Richard, Kapil, one of the key things for us, since this is brand-led and propulsion next,
P B Balaji
the key thing to watch out for is how, from a volume perspective, how much is it adding to the overall volume so that the level of cannibalization is minimal. That's how we are seeing in the expressions of interest that is there in terms of overlap that we'll get.
For us, don't forget that from an operating leverage perspective, it is huge for this business. Therefore, the more we are able to now prove that this is not cannibalized and we're able to step up volumes on the right product, then that flows all the way to the bottom line.
Therefore, for me, as the key thing to watch out for is not so much variable margins, which Richard has already explained, but even more powerful would be the amount of cannibalization that we are getting. Therefore, if that's going to be minimal, then we are absolutely up and away.
Dhiman Gupta
Okay. Sticking with you, Richard, the next question from Jyoti Singh from Haitong Securities: this is on China and given that our current revenue from China is 13%, how do we see that share kind of evolve?
Are we expecting it to go up or down?
Richard Molyneux
I think the reality of China, the market at the moment, where the economy is not growing at the pace that they are used to, and the retailers are suffering industry-wide from large overcapacity of domestic manufacturers, means that China is very unlikely to get any easier for us. It is most probably going to get a little bit worse before it stabilizes.
We're in a decent place. We have been really disciplined in making sure that our retailer stock days are down to level that do not encourage discounting, and we are focused on innovative ways of driving demand.
It would be incorrect of me to stand here and say that I think all the bad news from China is all done yet. I don't think it is.
Then
P B Balaji
just to add to that, compared to what we said we were expecting China to actually be leveling off at a lower end during the Investor Day, I think the recent tax moves that have happened in terms of retrospective taxes has meant there's increased pressure on the customer segment that we are targeting. Therefore, that's something as a watch-out that we need to be careful about.
That's an additional headwind that's coming through as far as China's concerned.
Dhiman Gupta
Okay. Thank you, Balaji.
Shailesh, I'm going to come back to you for the next couple of questions. Sierra is doing well with a two, three-month waiting period.
Given that there's a festive period out, how are we thinking of production and supply so that we can reduce the waiting? Yeah.
Shailesh Chandra
For Sierra, we were badly affected because of the casting of engines, mainly for the petrol, but also true for the diesel engines. There were also sheet metal items which came under stress with all the shared capacity that we had for other products also, but also true that the industry demand went up from 350,000 to 450,000, so that created press capacity issues in many sheet metal suppliers also.
I think we have been working on that for past four, five months. We will see improvement from this month and next two months, and the major additional capacity enhancement work that we have been doing will kick in from October, hopefully.
That should give the bigger boost, I would say, in October. Next two months also we'll see the improvement.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. I'll just ask you to stay for the next question, too.
We've been a market leader in EVs, and our market share we spoke about how we've been rising to 40% and beyond. If you can throw some color as to how you see this market share evolving for us and what's the target we are looking at in the medium term?
Shailesh Chandra
I think we have to see in light of, of course, one, that the market is growing very fast, but at the same time, the good news is that there are multiple players with their new models also which are coming in, and therefore, competition is also intensifying significantly. If you would have seen in the last one year, actually we have increased our market share from 37% to actually last month it was 43%, and that has been possible because of two reasons: one, that existing products have been significantly enhanced in terms of their value proposition, which has multi-fold increased the demand for these vehicles, example is Punch EV.
We today have, despite supplying about 4,000, 4,500 a month, we are still with a 8 to 10 months of waiting period. This month onwards, we are further enhancing the capacity, so that kind of action has helped increase the demand for our existing portfolio.
On top of that, we are coming with additional products, as you would have seen, Sierra EV was one product that got added. There will be one more additional product which will get added to the portfolio in this financial year, and two big refreshes also.
I think this space we are therefore going very systematically giving options to customers right from ₹7 lakh to ₹30 lakh. This whole space, every model is punching above its weight.
I think we are very confident that we'll not be able to only protect our market share, but hopefully increase it despite significantly intensifying competition.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. The next question from Raghu.
If you could help me on question number one and then I'll take the rest. For India PV business, congrats on the strong sales performance.
How do you see our exports panning out for FY27 and '28?
Shailesh Chandra
I think these are early stages of our growth in export business. As you know that last year we opened the South Africa market, and that has really helped us significantly grow our export.
Last financial year, we grew by 4x on a low base, of course, but this year we are targeting more closer to 2x growth of what we did last year. That is the outlook for FY27.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. On the next two questions, the first question is on proportion of our revenues that we are receiving PLI, and when do we expect certifications for all the models?
Right now, only two of our products are qualified for PLI, which is Nexon and Harrier.ev. All the other refreshes and the new launches, including Tiago EV, Punch EV, Sierra EV, are under fresh certifications, and Curvv.
We expect that we'll be getting the PLI certifications as well as the DVA accruing the PLIs from Q3, and by Q4 almost our entire portfolio should be PLI accredited. The last question: how much is the commodity inflation impact?
I've answered this. In Q1, it is 4.5%, and in Q2, we are expecting another hardening of 3%.
Shailesh Chandra
However, you would also like to give in terms of how we're going to offset that and to what extent?
Dhiman Gupta
We've kind of mentioned that in Q2, while the hit is going to be 3%, we've spoke about some of the levers that we are kind of using to offset the commodity impact. The first one is price increase.
We've taken already a 0.5% increase in July, which has not reflected in our Q1 financials. We'll be taking further calibrated increases through the year.
We are also having strong cost-reduction programs that we are accelerating. We had a 1.5%, year-on-year we had a 2% benefit, in Q1 itself we had 1.5%, we'll get incrementally more this quarter.
Third is, in Q1, we had the seasonal impact of IPL, which was to the extent of 1%. We won't have that in Q2, there's a benefit of 1%.
Net-net in Q2, despite the 3% commodity hit, we are expecting margins to be flattish with respect to Q1.
Shailesh Chandra
We've
Dhiman Gupta
got one question from one of our analysts on email as he couldn't join the call. Shailesh, I'm going to have to read it out to you.
India PV, could you provide some color on when we are going to launch Avinya, and where does it sit in your portfolio? Is it above or below Safari in terms of aspirational value for customers?
Shailesh Chandra
I think it just kind of democratizes the experience that you get in a luxury vehicle, and therefore, it is, I would say, significantly premium over Safari as a comparison. That was your second part of the question.
In terms of when Avinya is going to get launched, I had been talking about 2026 end, but you would have seen the news articles and then our response to that, that we had to shift our platform strategy to Freelander platform of CJLR, and that is going to delay the project a bit, but in 2027 we should be able to launch the product.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Shailesh. I think the second part of the question also if you could take it: are we having any discussions with the government for extension of PLI beyond FY28?
Shailesh Chandra
Far we did not take it with the government, but in future we'll see to what extent we are able to consume our target or quota, and then we'll look at that.
Dhiman Gupta
Okay. Richard, I'm going to have to read this question out to you, too.
I'll be slow so that you're able to catch it. The first question on JLR: what sort of EV mix do you need in Europe once the Euro 7 norms possibly kick in from 2027?
If you could take that one, please, and I'll move on to the next question after that.
Richard Molyneux
Yeah. Progressively, and we would expect our launch volumes of Range Rover Electric, Range Rover Sport Electric, and Range Rover GT, their sales mix will be primarily initially UK and Europe, as that is where the leverage of BEVs are.
We will have enough capacity in our production systems to be able to be legislatively compliant, and we'll hope production and demand will get us there. Yes, our BEV rollout will undoubtedly not match our ICE mix.
We will sell progressively more ICE in North America, progressively more BEV in the UK and in Europe.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. I'm going to read out the second part of the question.
If you could please share some color on the exploratory partnership discussions on potentially manufacturing our vehicles in US?
Richard Molyneux
Yes, we signed an MOU a couple of months ago. We are aiming to get that to a formal and definitive agreement by the end of the year.
Discussions are live and underway to be able to do that. As soon as I've got any more, I will let you know.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you. Richard, the last two questions for the day before we close the call coming your way.
The first question from Rishi: if you could throw some color on the kind of hedge book position we have on GBP/USD on our books, and how do we look at profitability versus the current exchange rates that you're seeing?
Richard Molyneux
Okay. I don't actually think I've ever said that our hedge book is around $1.28, but to be entirely honest, you're not that far wrong.
Look, we prefer a weak sterling environment as an exporter. We are the biggest exporter of goods in the entirety of the United Kingdom.
As an exporter, we prefer the scenario where cable is in the $1.20s than the $1.30s. That's the reason we have a hedge book, and we will use that to manage both risk and return.
Obviously, our hedge book is mark-to-market largely, the profitability of that hedge book is already on the balance sheet. We will manage our exposure and our hedges to ensure that we manage that.
Also, of course, if you think through the scenario with Stellantis, and if that becomes real and goes into production, then we end up with much more of a natural hedge to what is at the moment an extremely large long dollar position. That's another small piece of our thinking behind the move to that MOU with Stellantis is to give a slightly more of a natural hedge on cable.
P B Balaji
Just to add to that, to what Richard has said is all of it is right. Two additional angles there.
One is we do put through cash flow hedges on the borrowings, which are in dollars, so that we are able to create a natural hedge on that on the dollar side, number one. Number two, if you connect the thought, in the Investor Day, we did talk about £1.7 billion in order for us to get our break-evens down to the 300,000 units.
We obviously have to take thinking about take care about cost, including the fixed cost, a lot of it is dollar denominated sorry, pound denominated. Therefore, those are actions that are already underway, and we continue to keep a we will keep a very tight leash on the cost structure structures as well.
Because that's finally the the actions on getting a natural hedge and ensuring that we keep a very tight leash on dollar pound costs are the ones that are going to deliver us on this. Hedges are more to ensure the volatilities on this is ironed out rather than the structural profitability.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you. I think there's one more question that has come in.
Last two questions, Richard, for the day. One is I think our net debt at JLR is now up to £3.6 billion, I guess the question is, what is the view that the credit rating agencies have on the credit rating, and what's the linkage to the overall cost of debt at JLR?
Richard Molyneux
Look, we're in constant contact with the rating agencies, obviously, and we'll take them through today's announcements. Up until now, the current situation where we're just on those borders of investment grade, but on negative watch, I think are likely to remain in place, but we'll stay in close contact with them.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Richard. Last question for the day, Balaji, and this is coming your way.
What is the volume we can expect from JLR EV in FY27 and, more so, in FY28, and what's the peak volumes we can assume from the four new models you're planning to launch? Kapil,
P B Balaji
let me not go all the way on that. Starting point is, of course, the launches that begin in September when we start the Range Rover Electric, that's the first launch that starts in September.
Of course, as Richard rightly pointed out, we've got a slew of launches coming in in the next six months and beyond. Therefore, as far as FY27 is concerned, basis the production start that is planned, I think we are tentatively penciling in about 12,000 cars this year on the EV space, and then we will keep you posted as how it goes along.
Dhiman Gupta
Thank you, Balaji. That brings us to the end of the analystic call for this quarter.
We wish you all a good evening and we'll see you in the next analystic call in a couple of months from now. Thank you, enjoy your evening.
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