JEDDAH, 19 October 2006 — Gulf Arab women are returning now to the old tradition perfume and slowly abandoning Western perfumes with all their glamorous names. Oud, Kohl and other eastern perfumes derived from flowers and jasmine are on top of Saudi women’s list.
This has driven Saudi investors toward the perfume market that is estimated by Al-Khaleej Company for Perfumes, which regularly conducts studies on the growth in this market, to be worth approximately SR4 billion ($1.06 billion) annually for the countries in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia consumes about half of this market.
Arab News spoke to perfume vendors who all agree that Saudi consumers are increasingly buying traditional perfumes, a trend that may say began in 2001. Al-Khaleej has reported that there is growing interest in expanding the domestic production of perfumes in the Kingdom, a move that could create up to 10,000 jobs. The company also says that the market could grow by 7 percent a year in the near future.
Saudi Arabia is on the lead countries that consume Arabian perfume, followed by UAE in the second place. Big companies are updating their mechanism and increasing their branches to reach large segment of buyers and by enforcing the fixed price policy that is based on the value versus the quality of the product.
They are also updating their marketing strategies to attract as many consumers as possible.
In a related issue, the local market is suffering from large quantities of fake perfumes in the local market with is sold for cheaper price. Statistics showed that businessmen and authorized agents are suffering SR300 million in loses every year because of the fake perfumes in the market. Proper authorities with the help of perfume companies are working to put an end to this problem.
