Tata Motors expects Jaguar Land Rover's cash flow to quadruple, sets dividend after 7 years

India’s Tata Motors expects its luxury car group, Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) free cash flow to nearly quadruple to top US$2.50 billion this fiscal, and the automaker also declared its first dividend in nearly seven years.

The automaker, India’s No 1 by revenue, also posted a record high quarterly revenue and its second straight quarterly profit, helped by price hikes and strong demand for JLR cars as well as for its commercial trucks.

The profit of 54.08 billion rupees (S$878.6 million) for the January to March quarter also beat analysts expectations of 38.72 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Tata Motors expects the JLR unit – which had previously reported a jump in quarterly sales on demand for its more profitable Range Rover SUVs – to post free cash flow of more than £2 billion (S$3.33 billion) in fiscal 2024, compared with £521 million in the fiscal year ended March 31.

The company said it expects JLR’s supply chain, which has been plagued by delayed supply of parts such as semiconductors, to stabilise and forecast the unit’s Ebit (earnings before interest and taxes) margin would top 6 per cent in fiscal 2024, more than double the 2.4 per cent it reported in fiscal 2023.

Tata Motors has raised prices across models to cope with rising input costs. Despite that, consumers lapped up sport utility vehicles (SUVs), while demand for trucks surged ahead of the introduction of stricter emission norms.

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That propelled its overall consolidated revenue 35 per cent higher to a record 1.06 trillion rupees, of which British automaker JLR accounted for about 67 per cent.

Revenue from commercial vehicles, Tata’s second-largest business, grew 14.6 per cent, while sales of passenger vehicles grew 15.3 per cent.

The company also declared a dividend of 2 rupees per share.

The stock hit a new 52-week high of 520.50 rupees earlier on Friday (May 12), before closing up with a 0.85 per cent gain ahead of the results. REUTERS