Demand in China drives up Jaguar Land Rover sales by 30pc

The Midlands-based manufacturer, owned by Indian company Tata Motors, said revenues hit £2.9bn in the three months to September 30.

It benefited from strong demand for the recently launched Range Rover Evoque and a version of the Jaguar XF with a 2.2 litre diesel engine. Pre-tax profits rose 9 per cent to £287m.

Retail sales in China soared 87 per cent, with Range Rovers and a Jaguar XJ model with a three-litre engine proving popular among the country’s burgeoning middle class.

Sales in Russia were up 6 per cent.

In the UK, retail sales were up 1 per cent, as a rise in sales at Land Rover offset a fall at Jaguar.

JLR has enjoyed a dramatic turnaround in fortunes in recent years boosted by strong demand in emerging markets.

It last week announced it would create 1,000 jobs at its factory in Solihull near Birmingham to support plans to launch 40 products over the next four years.

And earlier this year, the car maker – which employs some 21,000 workers in the Midlands and Merseyside – said it will build a £355m engine plant in Wolverhampton that will potentially create thousands of jobs.

The company reported pre-tax profits of £1.1bn in the year to March 31, up from £14.6m the previous year. Revenues increased 51 per cent to £9.9bn.

The results represented a turnaround on two years earlier when the company slumped to a loss as the car market collapsed amid the global economic meltdown.

Tata Motors, controlled by billionaire Ratan Tata, bought the company from Ford for £1.5bn in June 2008.

The strong performance at JLR helped boost the performance of Tata Motors. The group’s sales rose 27 per cent to £4.5bn, while underlying profits rose 13 per cent to £337.4m.

Meanwhile, sportscar maker McLaren will announce this week that it is creating 300 jobs at its state-of-the-art £50m sports car factory in Woking, Surrey, on top of the 1,700 already employed at the site.

The Formula One group, run by Ron Dennis, will officially open the plant on Thursday.

It currently makes about 1,000 MP4-12C sports cars a year, which sell for about £169,000 each, but it plans to introduce more new models.

A report believes its next car might be a ‘supercar’ to rival the Bugatti Veyron and could sell for more than £400,000.