Announcing last month’s results:
For the month of February, Jaguar decreased 9 percent to 1,410 from 1,552 units in February 2014. The brand volume leader, Jaguar XF was down 22 percent off of record February sales in 2014. The Jaguar F-TYPE continues to grow with an increase of 31 percent to 422 units from 322 in February 2014. In 2015, the 16 MY Jaguar F-TYPE will newly be available with options of all-wheel drive and a manual transmission.
It does not say much good when a brand’s “volume leader” posts a sales drop of such a large magnitude.
Strong results for the F-TYPE were so tiny that they barely made a difference:
The Jaguar F-TYPE continues to grow with an increase of 31 percent to 422 units from 322 in February 2014
The problem with relying on the most expensive end of a model line to lift results is that only so many people are willing to pay the premium. The price of an F-TYPE can run more than $100,000.
No car brand in the luxury sector can avoid the dominance of BMW and Mercedes. Each has a broad product line and parent companies with huge sales, tremendous balance sheets, dealer networks and substantial budgets for R&D and product development. Mercedes sold 25,291 cars and light trucks in February, which was up 5.2% from the same period last year. BMW sold 25,201, up 14.5%. Several other luxury brands from companies based in the United States, Germany and Japan have set their goals to take sales away from the two leaders.
Jaguar will continue to be troubled. It is too small and has too few resources to compete in a crowded market.
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