Dubai: Elekta Gulf, a UAE-based company that owns and markets more than 200 types of home appliances and electronic products in 35 countries, is planning to launch a wide range of kitchenware and cooking ranges as part of its plans to diversify into new avenues, a top official said.
With this, Rajan Mathrani, managing director of Elekta, plans to raise his company's current annual turnover from $125 million (Dh458 million) to $200 million by 2013.
"The new products will be branded Aristo with the tagline ‘Live the aristocratic way of life'," Mathrani, a Dubai-based Indian-born Japanese citizen, told Gulf News in an interview.
The new range will be launched in September with a major marketing campaign, he said.
Last year the company sold 1.8 million units of home appliances and consumer electronics, up from 1.4 million in 2008.
His company, established in Japan in 1988 as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), has been outsourcing the manufacturing of home appliances and consumer electronic goods to factories in South Korea, China, Taiwan and Turkey.
Partnership
The company was born out of a partnership between Rajan and his Japanese wife Yuriko, who is the company's chief financial officer. Rajan Mathrani, who had lived in Japan since 1968 until moving to Dubai in the 1990s, traded in Japanese electronics prior to launching Elekta.
"In those days, the major electronics giants started taking a direct role in retail business to squeeze the margins," Mathrani recalls.
"It was becoming difficult to survive. While demand was growing in East Europe, we could not supply to them with the right price."
Mathrani chose to launch his own company in Japan under the Elekta brand and placed orders in Korea.
"Demand was growing in Eastern Europe. Our shipments sold like hotcakes. The price was well below the original Japanese products, but our margins were still good as the cost of production per unit was much less due to outsourcing.
"After the initial takeoff, we established the production, shipment and export channel. The rest is history."
Although the company's initial success was driven by the then growing demand in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), growth is currently coming from Africa and Asia's emerging economies.
Mathrani quickly established his company's presence in Dubai and continued to feed the emerging markets. Later, he moved to Dubai, as the base had then moved to the Gulf's biggest trading hub.
"We outsource products from seven countries and export and re-export to more than 35 countries through our hub in Jebel Ali," Rajan Mathrani says.
Elekta is one of many OEM brands that has cashed in on Dubai's second electronics boom in the 1990s, driven by demand from Eastern Europe and CIS.
As a result, investors began creating Japan-esebrands such as Supra and Nikai to cater to those markets. These were created by Dubai-based non-resident Indians. The goods were airlifted in bulk from Sharjah.
