Haramain Group's smell of success

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Haramain Groups smell of success

Haramain Group considers Dubai as business hub and exports its products to more than 40 countries across the world, writes Abdul Basit

By Abdul Basit (chief Reporter)

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Published: Sun 18 Jan 2015, 10:52 PM

Last updated: Thu 25 Jun 2015, 7:35 PM

Dubai’s business-friendly policies and ease of doing business attract investors from across the world almost every day. The World Bank in its ‘Ease of Doing Business report 2015’ ranked Dubai 22 out of 189 top economies in the world. The recent ranking, released by Financial Times’ fDi Magazine, has placed Dubai at third position for attracting foreign direct investment.

There are a lot of success stories at almost every corner of Dubai and other parts of the UAE and Al Haramain Group is one of them. Since the opening of the first showroom of Al Haramain Perfumes in the early 1980s in Dubai’s famous Murshid Bazaar, it is now a household name all over the world, and its products are being sold through many popular and leading shopping malls and outlets in many countries including London’s Harrods.

Al Haramain has grown under the leadership of Mahtabur Rahman and has become synonymous with quality perfumes across the GCC, Middle East and beyond. Over the years, the company has produced a wide range of products and created outstanding blends to suit varying moods, needs, occasions and personalities.

Al Haramain Perfumes produces more than 1,300 different products. The prices can go up to Dh25,000 for the most precious collection of six bottles of 24ml each fragrances called ‘Empress of Perfume.’

Mohammed Mahtabur is a seasoned businessman and involved in a broad range of business and trade ventures around the world. About 10 years before the opening of the first showroom in Dubai, he joined his father’s business in Makkah, which was established in 1970. He learnt the basics of the business over there.

“I came to Dubai two to three times in the early 1980s and found that there are a lot of opportunities to establish business. So we opened our first showroom in Dubai’s Murshid Bazar,” Mohammed Mahtabur told Khaleej Times during an interview at his Ajman factory.

“Realising the fact that it’s much easier to import goods, manufacture products and export from Dubai to across the world, we moved our small production facility from Saudi Arabia to the UAE in 1987,” he said. “I believe Dubai is a business hub and easy to cover countries in the Middle East for exports,” he added.

With the rapid rise of activities and to control the entire network of business operations, the company has built its most modern head office in an area of 11,000sqf in Dubai and also established Al Haramain Perfumes Industry, a most modern factory in Ajman.

The 174,477sqf factory grew into a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit using automatic and semi-automatic ultra-modern machineries including ‘Agilent’ quality control equipment in the R&D Department. The highly quality conscious, Al Haramain Perfumes has been accredited by authorities with Dual ISO Certificates in QMS & GMP.

Haramain also owns factories in other parts of the world; mostly Far East for the sourcing of raw materials.

“We have factories in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and there we only manufacture Aground to oil. Laboratory test, packaging, and final production come out from the Ajman factory,” he explained. In addition, the company also sources raw material from Paris for body lotion and perfume, he added.

He said that there are different production capacities for different products such as attar, perfume, body lotion, body spray and other stuff. Some of the high-end items are very expensive and being manufactured very carefully, he explained.

Responding a question regarding Haramain Perfumes ranking in terms of top producer, he said: “I’m not the number one perfume manufacturer in the country but may be for the Oudh and Agarwood collections. There are many competitors for other products.”

It’s easy to bring products and sell in the market and there are so many people in the Middle East who are importing and selling, he said.

“We don’t do that. It takes almost a year to introduce one single product in the market from concept, designing, product development to production.”

“Our aim is that we should manufacture products in the UAE and put the label of ‘Made in the UAE’. Whenever we create something and it goes to the market that time we feel proud ourselves that this is our creation and we have done it,” he said.

He emphasised that the company is proud to produce ‘Made in the UAE’ products and these products go to more than 40 countries including GCC, Europe, US, Asia and Middle East. The company has more than 45 showrooms across Gulf countries.

“In this industry, we are more than 40 years old and already achieved our targets of exports. We exports products to major European countries, almost all Middle Eastern countries, top Asian countries including China, India and Pakistan. Our products are available at all duty free shops at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports.”

Domestic consumption of Haramain products is still more than exports, he said. “We consider all GCC countries as a domestic market as the company has its own offices and showrooms in all Gulf countries. Since we started from Saudi Arabia, we have very strong presence in the kingdom through three different categories of agents.”

He said Harmain Group has ability to boost its production to meet the growing demand of the company’s products.

“We have investment and expansion plans but not right now, may be in next two to three years. We have another big plot next to our existing manufacturing facility in Ajman Industrial Area. So we have no issue of increasing the manufacturing facilities.”


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