Saudi Gazette
MALABAR GOLD & DIAMONDS, which ranks among the world’s top five jewelry retailers in terms of turnover, is on a vigorous path to become the world’s No. 1. In an exclusive interview with Saudi Gazette, M.P. Ahammed, chairman of the Malabar Group of Companies, unveiled his group’s ambitious expansion plans with a thrust on six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. “We, as an international brand, based on the bedrock of customers’ trust, are now expanding our footprint to around a dozen countries. Within two years, we plan a gigantic expansion to nearly 100 countries across the world and thus become No. 1 global retailer,” he said, while emphasizing that the group’s focus now is mainly on GCC, and would soon turn to the Far East with opening showrooms in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, in addition to going as far south to Australia too.” Malabar, the second largest jewelry retailer in India with over 85 showrooms, behind Tata’s Tanishq, has at present around 100 stores abroad.
Expansion plans: Ahammed said Malabar has a cohesive expansion plan in Saudi Arabia, by abiding all rules of the Kingdom. Our priority is to take part in the progress of the respective countries where we open our showrooms and sharing our benefits with them through providing more jobs for the citizens of the country. We see Saudi Arabia as a very good market with vast potential and plenty of opportunities. Hence we plan to open several new showrooms in the Kingdom. We have hired a large number of Saudis in our showrooms. We are strict in following rules while operating in any country.
There is huge scope for religious tourism in Saudi Arabia as it hosts the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. I know this is a focus of Vision 2030. Saudis are striving to achieve self-reliance in all fields. There is a growing prominence for young leadership.
What makes Malabar distinguished: The most salient features of our brand are that we fulfill all the commitments to customers without compromising quality and upholding honesty and trustworthiness. We offer lifelong free maintenance plus 100 percent buy back guarantee. We are offering several new services hitherto not given to customers by any jewelers. We will be the jeweler with the maximum variety ornament collection and maximum number of customers and branches.
Ornaments like food habits, traditions: For any society, ornaments are more than their food and tradition. Ornament taste varies like food tastes. In any country, while planning to open a showroom, our priority is to cater to the gold tastes of the people in that locality. We have separate items for each state in India. Even in Kerala, we have separate items for each localities, such as Kasaragod, Calicut (Kozhikode) and Palakkad. Ornament is a manifestation of pride in a traditional way. Similar in the case of food, there are differences in ornament tastes in each community and locality based on their traditions.
We carry out researches before expanding our footprint to a locality. Our extensive researches mainly focus on the tastes of people in that area with a thrust on their traditions. People in each area want to get ornaments that cater to their tastes in better design, better quality, attractive prices and better after sales service. We are not making ornaments of our own choice, but ornaments of their (customers) own choice and taste. What we like may not be of their liking. However, we add our innovations to their tastes and trends, and thereby have introduced dress-matching ornaments, party wear, and function-wise ornaments.
Trust is hallmark of success: We see trust and honesty as the most important hallmarks of our brand. At the time of entering the gold business, it was a field in which a lot of cheating was taking place. We stood by the customer by fully supporting them with values of honesty, transparency and trustworthiness while providing life-long free maintenance and buy back guarantee. This is not given by many other gold merchants. For us, customer is king and making him happy by fulfilling all our commitments is key to our success and robust growth.
We have full trust in gold and so we pass this trust to our customers too. Gold is a safe investment with guaranteed quality and re-sale value. Even hard currencies often varies, but gold remains stable. The currency’s control is in the hands of the government that rule a country but the control of gold is in the hands of people worldwide. It is a precious metal even mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.
5% of profit for charity: We are giving utmost importance to social care and supporting the weaker sections of the society. We earmark five percent of all profits for charity. We have so far helped 11,000 people without homes to construct homes, in addition to helping hundreds of thousands of patients to buy medicine. We have also supported several students education, and these include several Omani school students. There are more than 2,000 investors in our group. If any new investor comes forward to invest in our venture, our first condition is that we will spend five percent of the profit to charity and there is a charity trust constituted for the purpose. We carry out charity work in several countries, including Somalia, and that is in cooperation with the major charity organizations in the respective countries. We are undertaking charity works in UAE, and Sharjah in coordination and cooperation with the leading charity organizations in those countries.
GST is beneficial for gold market: Ahammed welcomed the introduction of Goods and Service Tax in the gold market too. Gold merchants welcome this as a big step in right direction in the country’s tax reforms. It helps in avoiding tax evasion and thus boosting nation’s growth.
Ahammed expects jewelry sales to be at 10-20 percent this year on the back of lower taxes under GST. In Kerala, which is its mainstay in the domestic market, GST should increase sales. “However, he said, GST cannot alone make the gold market more transparent. Instead, the government should crackdown on unofficial/unbilled sales which today constitute around 75 percent of the industry in the country.”
“Money through tax evasion comes in the hands of mafia and as such we welcome any measures to stem tax evasion especially a single window taxation,” he said while quashing rumors that GST would impact the gold market adversely. “Nearly 70 or 80 percent of gold businesses are parallel or unaccounted ones. The profits of such businesses are in the hands of mafia and they are not passing on any benefits to the consumers.”
“When GST comes into force effectively, its tracking system will put an end to tax evasion and will bring down the parallel businesses and will eventually lead to an increase in government’s revenue. When streamlining accounting system, such tendencies will come to an end and government revenues will increase.”
The group’s real estate wing is called Malabar Developers. In 2005, marking the launch of Group’s real estate division, the first commercial building of Malabar Developers was launched in Calicut. In 2014, Malabar Developers initiated the plans for Mall of Travancore, which is designed to be a shopping mall of global standards.
Ahammed said several non-resident Indians (NRIs) who are interested in real estate investment are partners of this group. Our plan is to develop mini townships, shopping malls, apartments and villas. “We have ambitious township projects in Trivandrum, Calicut and Thrissur. The Travancore Mall that comes up in Trivandrum on an area covering 600,000 square feet, will be the largest mall in Kerala and we have already spent around Rs 4 billion for this mall, which is expected to be opened in September.” He said that Mundana Estate in Kuttikattoor near Calicut would be an ideal township in South India. Spreading over 120 acres of land and comprising three hills, the estate will house a shopping mall, convention center, family entertainment area, schools, organic gardens, vegetable plantations etc.,” he said, adding that High Mart will be the hyper market and mall in Thrissur while a fourth township is in pipeline in Mangalore in the neighboring Karnataka state.
