Jaguar Land Rover was awarded the prestigious 2014 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade, reflecting sustained sales success dominated by global exports to over 170 countries. The award was conferred on Her Majesty The Queen’s birthday, citing Jaguar Land Rover’s “outstanding overseas sales growth over the last three years”.
The Queen’s Award is considered to be one of the most important awards for British businesses.
Exports account for 80 percent of all vehicles that Jaguar Land Rover produces at its three manufacturing plants in UK. In 2013, the company sold 425,006 vehicles, up 19 percent from the previous year. Jaguar Land Rover’s largest export regions are Mainland Europe, North America and China, together accounting for 60 percent of all export sales.
In addition, the Tata Group-owned company’s share of vehicle sales in regions beyond its traditional major markets in the UK, US and Europe has increased from under15 percent in 2008 to more than 40 percent now, after it focused on driving a balanced global sales presence.
Dr. Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover CEO, said of the Queen's Award: "We are delighted and honoured to receive this recognition of Jaguar Land Rover's contribution to the British enterprise. Our success is thanks to our dedicated and passionate employees who create exciting vehicles that are in high demand with customers around the world.
"This Queen's Award is the perfect complement to us being named Responsible Business of the Year 2013, in recognising our success internationally as well as the many positive ways we contribute to society."
Jaguar Land Rover vehicles are all engineered and designed in Britain, with two R&D centres in addition to its three production facilities. The company now employs almost 28,000 people directly in the UK, rising to almost 30,000 globally, with a further 190,000 jobs supported in dealerships, suppliers and local businesses in UK alone.
Later this year, Jaguar Land Rover is planning to open its first all-new enging manufacturing facility – located near Wolverhampton, UK – to produce a new family of advanced, aluminium engines, called ‘Ingenium’, that will power future Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.
The centre is the product of a £500 million (Rs 5,078 crore) investment by the company and will create almost 1,400 new jobs in the country. It will also create a further 3,500 highly skilled jobs in the supply chain. Jaguar Land Rover is planning to invest a further £1.5 billion (Rs 15,234 crore) to introduce an all-new, technically-advanced aluminium vehicle architecture in forthcoming models, beginning with the new Jaguar XE premium sedan to be manufactured from 2015 at the company’s Solihull facility, creating 1,700 new jobs.
This is the first Queen’s Award won by Jaguar Land Rover as a single company, each of the brands has, however, won six times in the past between 1967 and 2008.