Jaguar Land Rover has announced some excellent news: it achieved positive free cash flow and profitability for the three months up to December 31, 2022. This is thanks, in part, to easing semiconductor chip supplies, a solid vehicle lineup, competitive pricing, and production of the New Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. A total of 27,456 examples were sold during that time, an increase from 13,537 in the previous business quarter.

Pre-tax profit in Q3 reached £265 million, or $328 million according to the latest exchange rates. Again, this is an increase from a £9 million ($11.1 million) loss the year prior. JLR's post-tax Q3 profit came to £261 million ($323 million), up from a troubling loss of £67 million ($83 million).

The automaker's total Q3 2023 volumes reached 79,591 vehicles, though this does not include units sold as part of the Chery Jaguar Land Rover joint venture in China.

The latter figure is an increase of 5.7% from the quarter ending on September 30, 2022, and a 15% increase from the same period last year. Unfortunately, the Chinese joint venture was hit by pandemic-related lockdowns that led to dealer closures and high employee absence rates. The good news is that JLR expects things to recover in the fourth quarter. Despite that hit, one thing remains certain: demand is high.

The Tata-owned carmaker's total order book increased to 215,000 vehicles, a boost of around 10,000 orders from the end of last September.

The most popular models, not at all surprisingly, are the Ranger Rover and Ranger Rover Sport, and Defender. The three account for a whopping 74% of current orders. JLR says it now has £3.9 billion in cash on hand.

"Jaguar Land Rover has returned to profit as chip shortages eased in the quarter and production and wholesales increased," said Interim CEO Adrian Mitchell. "These improved results are testament to the hard work and dedication of our people across the business who have delivered a further increase in production of our New Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models."

The automaker says it remains committed to its Reimagine strategy that will see it become an EV-only automaker by 2025, at least for the Jaguar brand. Its upcoming all-new Panthera platform will underpin those vehicles.

The search for a new JLR CEO continues following the departure of Thierry Bollore after only two years on the job.