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NEWS
More models for Land Rover
Process and desire defined, but sales boss Popham stays shy on detailsLand Rover is on the move. With record sales, three shifts at its existing UK factories, a Chinese expansion, and waiting lists for its key profit generating models it’s nearing the top of its game. Now, in the face of protestations that the marque never wants to be a volume brand, Land Rover says it’s looking to add models to its portfolio.
Global sales boss, Jaguar Land Rover Group Sales Operations Director, Phil Popham, told assembled international media at last week’s L494 Range Rover Sport launch that the company’s business plans were “ambitious” adding: “We will replace all our products and add to our product lines for Jaguar and Land Rover.”
So what’s in store for arguably the world’s most storied off-road brand? Despite the teaser, Popham is not saying...
“I won’t be specific. What I can say, is that we will constantly look at areas,” Popham hedged.
“We have this thing called the chessboard which looks at every price point, every vehicle category that exists... We look back 20 years and we look forward 20 years... and understand where the growth trends are.
“And that’s the start of saying: Is there, and where are, the growth potentials... Does that fit in with the DNA of the brand? Could we create a car that could fit into that emerging segment and, importantly, could we make money out of it?
“Our [Land Rover’s] competency is not to make volume cars. We’re not good at it; we haven’t got the infrastructure to do it. We don’t want to be a volume manufacturer; we want to be a premium manufacturer. But a result of that [chessboard] analysis, was Range Rover Evoque.”
“That’s how Evoque evolved, exactly from that process. And we do that all around the [current] portfolio products... And that will lead to a number of opportunities that get prioritised, that get analysed in a business case, and out of that come opportunities based on the platforms and architectures that we’ve got,” the affable JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) heavyweight explained.
According to Popham, growth will come (not surprisingly) from “derivatives” -- think long-wheelbase Range Rover, but importantly also from vehicles that take Land Rover into new segments.
“We have to maximise our economies of scale by ‘sweating the asset’, so when we have an architecture or platform, how many models, how many body styles, how many derivatives can you get from that?
“I think, in the future, it won’t be unusual to see the XF Saloon and Sportbrake, that type of approach [at Land Rover]. But all new products, for me, are about taking something to a new segment, and I think our ambition is to move into more segments as well.”
Popham’s definition of a new segment is perhaps best defined using an SUV related example: BMW’s X5 and X6 models for instance.
“You could argue that [X6] moves them [BMW] into a new segment. As well, an X6 is actually appealing to a completely different buyer to an X5. It shares a platform but it’s a very different [sales proposition].”
Popham’s definition of ‘premium’ is also quite catholic. It doesn’t, for instance, rule out a Defender replacement – just one that competes toe to toe with mass market productions from the likes of Toyota.
“Premium means that you don’t want to be in the volume low-price segment... So, if you look at utility, [with Defender] we’re not going to be a Toyota Hi-Lux single cab pick-up competitor... That’s not our core opportunity.
“We have aspirations to replace Defender. [But] Defender is quite a difficult car to replace because at the moment it’s a car that sells 20,000 units and stretches from pure utility in a military aspect right through to agriculture utilities through to leisure vehicles... It will probably in time need a family of vehicles to actually replace that. But, clearly, you’re not going to have a family of vehicles to sell 20,000 cars.
“You’ve got to sell it in every market in the world that we sell in, which is 178 countries now, and it’s got to make sense in terms of volume.
“So that’s a long term plan in terms of how we replace Defender, but we will do it,” Popham stated.
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Written byMike Sinclair
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