It was not quite possible at first to believe in the figure that I heard from Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Husseini about the turnover of Seiko watches in the Kingdom because it was beyond my limited comprehension. He told me that during the boom years he was able to sell four million watches a year. I published the interview and quoted him correctly in English and then in Arabic in our daily Sharq Al-Awsat, which is printed in several cities in the world.
In my column, I ventured to say that in the Kingdom maybe one out of two or three people must be wearing a Seiko watch which raised a few eyebrows. But since I quoted the agent correctly and the sales of the watch grew exponentially in the Saudi market there was no way of contradicting the statement. However, some people did not like the news to be highlighted so much but could not do much about it.
Years passed by and I had a chance recently to talk to Sheikh Othman, son of the owner and presently sales manager of Al-Husseini and Al-Yahya Group. He confirmed the figure.
I have known about Seiko for years, indeed since my years in Aden, Yemen, when one of my relatives Qassem Abdo Ghanem won the agency for that country and it soon became a best seller because it was cheap in price and also a good watch. The other watch was the West End, made in Switzerland. Al-Husseini also had its agency together with Orient and the Indian Titan, which is fairly popular among the Indian community here.
The group is at present one of the top Saudi companies ranking 81 out of the top l00 and has 10 branches plus 3,000 dealers in the country.
The company was established in l950 and soon Sheikh Abdul Rahman heard about the watch market in Kuwait and went there to buy 40 pieces that he could not sell in the Saudi market except after a long time. But then he went again and bought and sold a few more and finally decided to buy directly from Japan and try to get its agency. He obtained it and there came a time when the company could not meet his demand when it went into millions as Saudi Arabia became one of the largest markets in the world for almost everything. It had vast resources, a growing population and millions of pilgrims for Haj and Umrah. Their demand was insatiable.
The group has diversified its business to real estate, food and beverages and agriculture and is still growing. Its high-end watches include Longines, Charrioll, Cartier, Omega, Tag Heur, Mont Blanc, Piaget, Panarai, Calvin Klein, Paume, Mercier and others.
Before the Saudi and Gulf boom created a huge demand and an influx of people from many parts of the world especially the subcontinent, business houses here used to import from the British free port of Aden, now in Yemen although its days of glory have long gone thanks to the mistakes of the Marxist party that ruled it. Aden supplied the Saudi market with all sorts of goods from watches to cameras and radios plus readymade clothes.
The colony was by far the busiest transit port in the East where at least 30 ships a day anchored to load bunkering oil and allow their passengers to disembark for shopping. It remained a prosperous free port from l850 to l967. The Suez Canal was then closed for seven years and the Marxists closed the port and nationalized everything that was worth anything. Despite the unification of south and north Yemen, the glory of Aden free port has long peaked.
As a free port the present time seems to belong to Dubai as long as it remains stable and free from any disturbances. Hopefully it will remain so.
Sheikh Abdul Rahman was asked recently about the Saudi boom during which many people made fortunes and millions got jobs.
He was quoted as saying that the boom years had their downsides and the rise in real estate prices was one. “Before the boom,” he said, “land was cheap, five riyals, 10 riyals or 20 riyals per square meter. Prices now are astronomical,” he added. How will the new generation afford to live and to build in view of the current inflation?
From the company website:
“ Al-Husseini & Al Yahya Trading Co. and Seiko are celebrating 50 years of their partnership in Saudi Arabia. “Our partnership has been very successful and our market share steadily increasing,” Abdul Rahman Al-Husseini, president and CEO of the company told a press conference at Jeddah InterContinental.
“The Kingdom is our third biggest market, after the United States and Japan,” Takashi Wakuyama, director and COO at Japan-Based Seiko Watch Corporation’s international marketing division, said. Seiko’s annual sales in the Kingdom now average more than 500,000 pieces. “Since the beginning of the partnership, Seiko has been in the premier position of the watch market.
This proves that our partnership is very successful,” he said. Seiko introduced its core concept and defined its new brand vision to mark the 40th year of partnership in a market that is becoming “highly competitive.” The Japanese watch giant has decided to boost its brand value by defining its brand identity as ‘Innovation and refinement.’ “All of our products, advertising and point of sales will be in accordance with this concept,” he said, adding that last year the company launched Arctura Kinetic Chronograph as its flagship. “Its technological innovation, refined design and sophisticated advertising appeal to many consumers worldwide.” It also introduced a new Seiko 5 model to mark the 40th anniversary. Only 2003 pieces of this limited edition were produced and “very well accepted” in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the world. This year, the company plans to introduce products with concepts that embody innovation and refinement.”
n Farouk Luqman is an eminent journalist based in Jeddah.