Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the marquee British luxury car and sports utility vehicle brand owned by Tata Motors, is making its cars affordable in India to woo new buyers. The targeted group includes owners of small and medium enterprises, young professionals and company executives who would like to upgrade to a Jaguar.
The strategy includes local assembling of more of the products to bring down the prices and rolling out of affordable luxury cars to target the mass luxury car segment currently dominated by Mercedes Benz C class, BMW 3 Series and Audi A4.
For more than a year, the company has been assembling some of its models at Pune and this has helped it bring prices down as compared to fully-built imported cars. Recently, the company introduced Jaguar EX derivatives called Pure and Portfolio that costs Rs 39.9 lakh and Rs Rs 47.7 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai) respectively, and on Thursday, it rolled out another of its derivatives, Jaguar XE Prestige, priced at Rs 43.69 lakh.
Rohit Suri, President, JLR India, said: “We already had two variants of Jaguar XE, and now, with the introduction of a variant in between them, we are expecting large volumes from this model. With the introduction of Jaguar XE, we have entered a new market segment.
“In February, when we rolled out the two derivatives of Jaguar XE, we received a fantastic response from customers, and many customers wanted a variant that is positioned in the middle. Now, we will be able to corner a bigger market.”
Seven years ago, when Jaguar cars were first introduced in India, the lowest priced car was at over Rs 70 lakh, creating the impression that the cars were too expensive. Now looking for volumes, JLR is focusing on rolling out more cars that are easy on the pocket for Indians. “The XE range is not very expensive, and with this product line, a lot of people can join the Jaguar family,” Mr Suri said.
