Slowdown? What Slowdown? Tata Asks For More Jaguar Engines On Strong Demand (TTM, F)

Tata Motors TTM certainly isn't seeing a slowdown. At least not in the demand for its Jaguar and Land Rover lines. In a Wall Street Journal report, Tata announced today that it is in talks with Ford F to receive more engines for its Jaguar and Land Rover brands, as the Indian car company is seeing strong demand for these lines. "The demand for Jaguar-Land Rover vehicles has exceeded our projections. We have asked Ford to supply more engines," said Carl Forster, chief executive and managing director of Tata Motors's global operations. Forster also announced the company is working towards raising $1 billion, but it hasn't decided when it will do this. During the April to June quarter, Tata Motors sold 76,539 Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. This showed incredibly strong demand, as sales rose 50% from last year. Further breaking down the numbers, Jaguar sales rose 31% to 21,131 cars, and Land Rover sales rose sharply, rising 59% to 55,408 trucks. In addition to seeing strong demand for its luxury products, Forster added that Tata Motors will reopen bookings for the Nano minicar, the world's cheapest car. "It won't be pan-India, we would open bookings state-wise as we want to commit to what we can supply," he said. Tata Motors started taking orders for the Nano back in March 2009, but had to stop a month later after the demand for the product was higher than expected. It received 206,703 orders and only took 100,000 of these due to supply constraints. Since taking the orders, Tata has delivered 54,129 cars since it started making deliveries in July 2009. Shares of Tata are up 53 cents to $21.83 and shares of Ford are up 18 cents to $11.49.