Talking British craft and international trade with Range Rover

For International Trade Week, we have partnered with the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) to support our Made in the UK honour at our upcoming Walpole British Luxury Awards 2023. Find out more information here.

There are few automotive silhouettes as instantly recognisable as that of the Range Rover – and it’s a silhouette that immediately sparks certain connotations: originality and quality, Britishness and sophistication, luxury and go-anywhere capability. For Geraldine Ingham, Managing Director for Range Rover, it’s that enduring excellence of craft and uniqueness that continues to draw clients from across the world. “Range Rover has remained timeless. You recognise it straight away,” she says. “When you see one of our vehicles out in different markets and when we talk to our clients, there is a real desirability, aspiration and respect.”

When the Range Rover launched in 1970, it was the first of its kind – a luxury SUV that not only looked and felt elevated and exceptional, but one that could also handle the practicalities of both urban and off-road exploration. A year after it launched, it was shown at The Louvre in Paris, France, as an example of exemplary industrial design. That spirit of form and faculty is as true for the brand – and the product – now as it was then.

Driven by the huge success of the most recent Range Rover model and the new Range Rover Sport, the company is seeing impressive year-on-year figures. With over 80% of those sales coming from outside of the UK, there’s a clear appetite for the brand around the world. For Geraldine, it’s not just down to the Middle East or China.

“We export to over 100 markets globally and our portfolio is really balanced across all markets, but what we do see now is how the luxury buyer is evolving.” And this is where Range Rover is nurturing pockets of new growth that’s built on the existing popularity of the brand. “We still sell to traditional ultra-high-net-worth individuals, of course, but there’s also a digital-savvy, younger generation that are growing their wealth and buying into this aspirational product. We are also seeing more female high-net-worth individual growth coming. So, it’s not just from a regional perspective we are seeing evolution, but also in terms of demographic within those markets.”

Despite a growing worldwide client base, Range Rover is dedicated to its ‘made in Britain’ design and engineering ethos – the founding principles of the name – with a £15bn commitment to its industrial footprint. It’s in that intrinsic British aura that the company and brand ecosystem can continually appeal, generation after generation.

As we’ve learned throughout this series, home-grown craftsmanship – no matter the scale - is what people buy into all over the world. That alluring notion of Britishness, with all its nuances, is still an enduring stamp of quality, heritage, and aspiration.

So what does the future hold? For Geraldine and the business at large, “It’s not about growth for growth’s sake. We want to grow through desirability. It’s about exclusive experiences, personalisation, and electrification.” From cultural global projects like ‘Range Rover House’ - that offers something different to the traditional way of buying a car - to the increasing relevance of its bespoke service, there’s a clear focus here for Range Rover and it oozes luxury, of course. However, there’s a refreshing appreciation for the individual client and – through the company’s commitment to having all new models electrified by the end of the decade – for the brand’s wider environmental responsibility.