By M.V.A. Kumar
DOHA: Traders of electronics goods and appliances in Qatar are pinning their hopes on an improvement in sales by September, after the dismal performance being witnessed in the post-Ramadan and Eid Al Fitr phase and the overall gloomy picture during the past seven months.
With majority of the expatriates travelling back to their home countries for the summer holidays, carrying gifts for their loved ones, and multitudes of new workers entering the country to take up jobs related to the hectic infrastructure development activity, one would assume that, at least, smart phones and the inexpensive electronics goods would be witnessing brisk sales.
If one were to go by Qatar’s trade statistics published in the World Integrated Trade Solution website, the country’s imports have gone up 7.1 percent with electronic equipment at a value of $3.4bn, figuring among the top imports.
It constitutes 10.4 percent of the total imports, with China, South Korea, the UAE, the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, India, Saudi Arabia and Japan as the biggest exporters of electronic equipment.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a top official at a leading distributor of consumer electronics goods, disclosed that sales in his company were close to 30 percent down. He admitted that there was a surge in sales during the pre-Ramadan period, but after that sales had plummeted. Many leading malls are also witnessing a drastic drop in demand for all consumer electronics items, particularly TV sets.
C V Rappai, CEO of Video Home & Jumbo Electronics, a leading distributor of LG and other popular consumer electronics brands, explained: “Customer sentiments have influenced spending habits and its negative impact is seen mainly in the sales of luxury and non-essential goods. Today, with the disposable income salary earners having gone down, they are postponing their purchase of non-essential goods like television sets etc by six months or more and limiting purchases to essential goods.”
Rappai said in the case of television sets, the period of transition from Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) to digital TVs is over and televisions being higher value items make people think many times, before replacing existing sets with something more trendy. Such an attitude is adopted even in the case of smartphones, which unlike the inexpensive basic models are higher value items.
About the energy star certified air-conditioners ousting the older models without energy star rating, he said his company had a huge stock of air-conditioners, that had been withdrawn in compliance of the new regulations.
The manager of another showroom, said air-conditioner sales for both the split and window models had declined dramatically, because customers were reluctant to pay higher prices for the upgraded energy star certified models that cost at least QR300 more than the previous models.
The Peninsula
