Land Rover's Disco Sport stocks need a boost

JUST a month in from its launch, Jaguar Land Rover Australia is casting around for additional supply lines of its Discovery Sport SUV.

JLR Australia has sold 145 units in the Disovery Sport's first three weeks on sale, with general manager of communications and public relations Tim Krieger telling GoAuto that dealers are currently taking one hundred orders a week.

“Feedback from the dealers is that the car has been incredibly well received by customers plenty of interest test drives, so we're very, very pleased with the way the car's going and how it's been received,” he said.

Mr Krieger said that while stocks of the car are sufficient for now, the search has started for additional supply lines.

“Globally the car has been very much a successful launch, so the challenge, as always, is trying to get our fair share,” he said. “Last week we had some visiting (Jaguar Land Rover) execs who came, and we spoke about those matters with them, that obviously we will be the first to put up our hand for more stock.”

While the United Kingdom is currently the strongest right-hand-drive market for the Discovery Sport, JLR Australia is not bound by supply constraints stemming from England.

“We reside in the overseas division which is a disparate group of countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Russia, the Middle East and so on basically, all the countries that don't fit in a neat geographic sector,” he said. “So one of the advantages for us is we can put our hand up and say, "Well, if any country is not looking to take their cars, Australia's certainly willing to take up the slack.”

High-spec SD4 diesel variants currently take up the bulk of the forward orders at almost 70 per cent, followed by the lower-tune HD4. Petrol orders comprise just five per cent of the total. Mr Krieger suggested that JLR Australia would look at all opportunities to secure additional stock, and that the product mix is sure to change.

“I think we would put our hands up for pretty much everything, so certainly ...

the engine that has proved most popular in the initial launch phase is the SD4.

That will probably change as petrol derivatives become more available.

Initially, diesel was the first derivative that was available, and then petrol would come later. So we expect that to even out a bit.”

If JLR Australia did manage to secure a line of stock from another market, it would take some time for the benefits to be realised.

“It tends to run over a six-month cycle. So, for instance, if we were to receive an allocation today, those cars would flow through in three-to-four months,” said Mr Krieger.

The Discovery Sport competes in the premium mid-size SUV segment that is currently led by Audi's Q5 with 1735 sales year to date, followed by the BMW X3 on 1104 sales and then another Land Rover offering, the Range Rover Evoque on 1092 units.