Jaguar Land Rover, owned by India's Tata Motors, aims to sell 100,000 cars in China this year, its chief executive Ralf Speth saidon Wednesday.

Tata Motors, India's biggest truck and bus maker, expects lean times at home to run into next year, after higher sales at its luxury unit Jaguar Land Rover failed to plug a sharp drop in first-quarter profit.

Quarterly profits fell 23% mainly due to sagging sales in India. Tata has over the last few quarters become reliant on overseas JLR sales to offset weak domestic demand, which has been hurt by rising ownership costs and sluggish economic growth.

Last year China overtook the UK as JLR's biggest market; 2012 sales in China grew by 71% to nearly 72,000 vehicles.

"The external environment is relatively weak particularly for the automotive industry," said chief financial officer C Ramakrishnan.

"Generally, margins will be under significant pressure this year for all."

The company, part of the $100bn (£64.6bn) Tata group, said net profit for the quarter through June was 17.26bn rupees ($281m), compared with 22.45bn rupees a year ago.

Meanwhile, net sales rose 8% to 467.51bn rupees. Analysts had been expecting on average a net profit of 22.34bn rupees, according to data from Thomson Reuters.