Global chip shortage: Jaguar Land Rover loses £9m

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) misplaced £9m ($12m) within the final three months of 2021 amid the worldwide laptop chip scarcity.

The UK automobile maker noticed its retail gross sales fall 37.6% in comparison with a yr earlier, because it produced simply 80,126 automobiles within the quarter to the tip of December.

Regardless of that fall in manufacturing the corporate noticed income of £4.7bn, up 22% on the earlier quarter.

Producers around the globe have been hit arduous as they wrestle to safe provides of semiconductors.

“While semiconductor provides have continued to constrain gross sales this quarter, we proceed to see very robust demand for our merchandise underlining the desirability of our automobiles,” JLR’s chief govt Thierry Bolloré mentioned in an announcement.

Nevertheless, the corporate additionally warned that it expects the chip scarcity to proceed all through this yr however count on provides to steadily enhance.

Chips are very important to trendy automobiles, with a lot of options together with touchscreen controls, automated emergency brakes, reversing cameras, gas effectivity tools and airbag deployment techniques all counting on them.

That helped push JLR’s Indian dad or mum firm Tata Motors to a 15.16bn rupees (£150m; $203.2m) loss for the interval.

On Friday, trade figures confirmed that UK automobile manufacturing final yr fell to its lowest stage since 1965.

The Society of Motor Producers and Merchants mentioned that slightly below 860,000 new automobiles left UK factories in 2021.

Manufacturing final yr was 6.7% decrease than in 2020 – and a full 34% beneath its pre-pandemic stage.

The SMMT mentioned the figures had been dismal, largely due to a world microchip scarcity and disruption attributable to the coronavirus pandemic.

Automobile makers around the globe have additionally been impacted by the chip scarcity, together with provide chain disruptions, Covid-19 restrictions and rising costs of uncooked supplies.

Motor trade giants together with Toyota, Common Motors, Ford, Nissan, Daimler, BMW and Renault, have all been pressured to reduce manufacturing in latest months as they struggled to safe sufficient semiconductors.