DAMMAM, 28 May — With the advent of summer, the heat is on the air-conditioner market. The Saudi market has “immense number of brands, most of them offering roughly the same product but very little in the way of after-sales service,” said Abdullah Al-Zamil, senior vice president of Zamil Air Conditioners.
It is essentially the after-sales service which proves to be a deciding factor for the buyer in selecting his brand. “We have focused on the after-sales service and made it a priority,” he said. Al-Zamil, however, agreed that though today’s consumer is well-educated, the dealers or salesmen still have sway over 60 percent of the buyers at the point of sale.
He said in the absence of strict labeling and warranty standards by various governments, more pressure is on the consumer to rely on the salesman’s word.
Al-Zamil called for consolidation of the industry to strengthen business in the local market. The market is saturated by too many small companies which are being protected by their founders. “We have little room to compete with the global brands as we are too small. But this will change and even the so-called big companies in the region will no longer be ‘big’ as they will not be able to face competition with the country’s WTO entry,” Al-Zamil said.
Highlighting ZAC’s performance, Al-Zamil said the company had been selling products from its distribution centers in America, Europe, the Far East and Australia. Zamil is the only company in the Middle East to manufacture a full range of products — it turns out up to 440,000 window air-conditioners, 60,000 mini-split systems and 36,500 central air conditioning systems annually. Its products are now selling in more than 30 countries.
