Tata Motors group company Jaguar, on Tuesday, unveiled its new entry-level premium sedan XE in London. The all-new vehicle is to be launched in 2015. The company will be first launching the XE S model. Further details would be made available at the Paris Motor show in October, a company statement said.
Priced at £27,000 pound, XE marks the company’s entry into the entry-level premium sedan segment, a segment dominated by players such as German BMW and Audi. The aluminium-intensive Jaguar XE is made at the Jaguar Land Rover Solihull plant, which was set up at a cost of £1.5 billion.
According to Ajay Sethia, automobile analyst, Centrum Broking, Jaguar has not looked at the volume segment to date, and the potential volume is significant. “It should also help improve Jaguar’s capacity utilisation. The luxury vehicle segment globally is the only one not impacted significantly by the economic slowdown.’’
Surjit Arora, analyst with Prabhudas Lilladher, a research outfit, said the product was likely to debut in India only after a year, following Europe, the U.S. and China. The entry-level premium sedan segment was a 1.3-1.5 million global market where Jaguar would aim for a 2-3 per cent market share in 2015-16, he said. While China accounted for around a third of Jaguar sales, its India sales were very low. The entry-level premium sedan segment was estimated to be growing at 45-50 per cent in India owing to a low base effect. For XE to be priced attractively in India, it would have to be assembled here, Mr. Arora said as the import duty on completely built units (CBUs) was between 80 per cent and 120 per cent.
“If there is a competitive price point, the product can both expand the market and create excitement in the segment here. Even though all global players are already present in India, the Jaguar brand has a lot of intrinsic appeal,’’ Mr. Sethia said.
