JEDDAH, 13 March 2003 — Indians are a conspicuous community in the Kingdom. There are 1.6 million, according to official Indian statistics. They form the largest foreign group in the country, and they work in almost every field: Drivers, doctors, secretaries, accountants, house boys — even journalists...
Indian products, however, are not conspicuous, although at the last count Saudi Arabia imported $808 million-worth of Indian goods. This is because many Indian imports — steel, chemicals, yarn and machinery — are not on supermarket shelves or otherwise available to the public. Those that are, notably rice and tea, do not have the high profile enjoyed by American cars and air conditioners, German trucks and Japanese computers and TVs.
In one area all this is set to change before the year is out. India’s leading vehicle manufacturer, Tata, is busy planning a massive assault on the Saudi market. It hopes eventually to have 60 percent of bus sales in the Kingdom and half the truck market. “If we’re not one of the top three suppliers in a short time, we will not be comfortable,” Tata’s A.S. Rangan told Arab News.
That Tata is not already here may come as surprise to many people, particularly Indians who know perfectly well that they have seen the odd Tata truck somewhere or other in the Kingdom. But that is the point. It has been a very occasional sighting. The 800 or so Tata vehicles in Saudi Arabia all arrived in a roundabout way. Some were imported direct from India, others bought in Dubai and Bahrain and imported from there by people who specifically wanted them as opposed to other marques. Several Indian companies working on contracts, such as Telecommunications India Ltd. which is under contract to Saudi Telecom, have imported its own fleet of Tata trucks.
Now Tata is deliberately targeting the Kingdom and doing it with almost military proficiency. The advance party is already here and marshalling its forces, although for the moment plans are limited to commercial vehicles. A year ago it signed a contract with Alhamrani, the agent for Nissan, giving it the agency for Tata commercial vehicles.
That Tata could take such a large slice of the bus and truck market may seem over-ambitious. But in Kuwait it already has 60 percent of the bus market, most of it for transporting schoolchildren and company employees; the Kuwait Public Transport Company also buys 250 to 300 buses a year. In the UAE, 50 percent of school and company buses are also supplied by Tata; in Oman too, it is one of the top sellers in the field. Company market studies indicate that in Saudi Arabia too, its buses will prove attractive to this all-important company bus sector, plus make inroads into the lucrative Haj and Umrah transportation market. We want to be one if the major players in the Kingdom”, Tata’s regional manager for Saudi Arabia, D.H. Mahale, told Arab News.
Tata’s highly competitive prices will attract customers, Tata mangers in Mumbai said. But the company has one card up its sleeve that it thinks will clinch matters.
The key to success is seen as its innovative support operation. In addition to Alhamrani as agent, Tata is setting up a network of authorized service agents across the Kingdom. Contracts have been signed with garages and service stations in 24 locations around the Kingdom and for the past six months their mechanics have been trained by Tata, some high-flyers being sent to the company’s factories in India. With Fuchs one-stop shops also able to service Tata vehicles, the planned end-result should be that there will be almost no place in the Kingdom where Tata vehicles cannot be serviced by trained experts. Such service coverage will, Tata believes, encourage buyers to go for their vehicles.
“We are new and we want to penetrate the market as fast as possible”, said Tata’s head of operations in the Kingdom, Samiullah Khan. There is reason to believe the ploy will work when Tata start selling in earnest this summer.
And if the buses and trucks sell well in Saudi Arabia, as Tata appear confident they will, the next step will be to launch Tata’s growing range of cars and 4X4s. But that will not be for another three of four years.
