Dubai: Off-the-shelf car purchase is now a reality in the UAE. Al Habtoor Motors has opened a sprawling used-car facility in Dubai Investments Park (DIP) modelled on a “supermarket” concept, which has been quite popular in the US — AutoNation pioneered it — and Europe but has taken its time to reach here.
At any time, the DIP facility will have around 250 vehicles cutting across multiple brands. Al Habtoor Motors has invested heavily on the look and feel of the place as well as in value-add features such as web access for customers and a buggy to cart them around.
“To have an inventory of 200 plus cars we needed an out of town location and that is why DIP was the ideal choice,” said Karl Hamer, managing director of Al Habtoor Motors, which is also the dealership for Mitsubishi and such super-premium labels as Bentley, McLaren and Bugatti. “We opened the first CarZone facility on Shaikh Zayed Road (in late 2011) and that can only manage 13 vehicles.
“But a used-car supermarket requires scale and that is what we can achieve in DIP, where we expect to do 500 units on average each month.”
It will now take the CarZone concept to Abu Dhabi, where it will take the first floor at a greenfield site on the Abu Dhabi-Al Ain highway and which will also host the world’s largest Mitsubishi showroom. The investment is around Dh100 million.
“There are plenty of opportunities within the automotive sector that are not restricted to the new car business,” said Hamer. “Used-car is one and so is the spare parts trade, where we now have created our own brand in Global Auto Parts.”
The spare parts business is to go live by the end of this month. More than 200 enquiries have been received from interested parties to be assigned the role of “agents” for the brand.
The spare parts will be sourced predominantly from China and Taiwan, but Al Habtoor Motors has also cast the net to tap plants in Eastern Europe and Turkey. “There have also been initial talks with British OEM manufacturers at the behest of the UK government,” said Hamer.
“The UAE’s automotive market can throw up multiple possibilities that we want to try and expand upon. We will not be confined to any single niche.”
Last year, the dealership side of the business sold 33,000 Mitsubishi models and more than 400 Bentleys.
