China sales boost for Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover has revealed its October sales results. There's excellent news in China, but the story is mixed elsewhere.

The 2017 Land Rover Discovery is shown during the Los Angeles Auto Show on Nov. 16, 2016. [Photo: AP]

According to a Jaguar Land Rover press release, the star performer of their October sales has been China:

"China continues to perform well with sales up 12%" states the release, "while overseas markets were up 16% compared to the same period in 2016."

"But difficult market conditions have led to retail sales being down 18% in the UK, and 3% down in Europe and the US."

The news is the latest of a number of positive stories for the company in China.

Just a few weeks ago, we reported that Jaguar Land Rover had opened an engine plant in the country.

The facility, in Changshu, is part of its joint venture with Chery Automobile Ltd.

The state-of-the-art facility manufactures the all-new Ingenium 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine for future Chery Jaguar Land Rover vehicles.

That news came just days after we reported that Jaguar is launching a new SUV, which is also going to be built in China.

That's due to capacity restraints at Jaguar Land Rover's UK plants, or as the boss Wolfgang Stadler puts it, a desire to grow 'volume, agility and flexibility' by building the car elsewhere.