Electronic retailers are expanding in the capital as confidence in Abu Dhabi’s economic outlook improves, leading brands said yesterday.
Costless Electronics, one exhibitor at the Abu Dhabi Electronics Shopper event at Adnec yesterday, has massive expansion plans.
“We are very confident in the market at present,” said Jehas Habison, the purchase manager at Costless Electronics. “We are owned by Abu Dhabi Co-Operative Society and we have a tie-up with Spar. We will be opening 25 stores in the next three years across the UAE, 10 of them will be in Abu Dhabi, some will be stand-alone, others as part of the cooperative. Many customers used to travel to Dubai to shop but now the capital can compete.”
According to the World Trade Organization’s international trade statistics 2013 report the retail sector in the UAE is set to grow to Dh151 billion in the next two years. That is borne out by the spread of electronics retailers looking to cash in on the desire for mobiles, tablets, phablets and televisions.
“At present we have one shop in Al Wahda and we plan to open another two shops here, they will be open by the end of the year,” said Mubasher Malik, the area manager for E-City. “We think that Abu Dhabi is a good market to grow, the locations have not been finalised yet, but they will be in good malls. We have another three shops opening in Sharjah, our next opening in July.”
Samsung, the South Korean electronics maker, has remorselessly marketed its products in the region opening branded shops and scooping up huge market share with nearly one in every two televisions bought in the UAE being a Samsung. It puts its success down to innovation and the UAE’s love of new technology.
"We have achieved the number 1 status for televisions with 45 per cent of all the business in the UAE," said Yousef Naser Abu Essa, Audio Visual Sales Group, Samsung. "We have a huge market share because we have the leading technology and the UAE loves new technology. Saying that, the curve television is a new technology but the curve business is slow at the moment, it hasn't really caught on, by next year curve TVs will be everywhere. We have opened our own branded shop in Abu Dhabi, we had a soft opening in Khaladiyah Mall and the official opening is this Sunday."
ascott@thenational.ae
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