Despite stricter auto financing regulations, car sales in Qatar are expected to grow 20 percent this year compared with 2012 with sales volumes touching nearly 100,000, says an industry expert.
\n\u201cAccording to the Middle East Automobile Council (MEAC) estimates, in 2012, over 80,000 new vehicles were sold, and this year Qatar\u2019s auto sector is forecast to sell up to 95,000 units, despite Qatar Central Bank\u2019s (QCB) stringent auto financing policies,\u201d said Mohamed El Talkhawi, General Manager of Sales and Marketing at Q-Auto, the new dealer of Audi products in Qatar.
\nEl Talkhawi rued that rules for auto financing are \u201cnot practical\u201d because QCB has too much control on banks with regard to car loans about \u201cwho does what with whom\u201d.
\n\u201cI believe it should be the liberty of individual customer whichever bank he\/she wants to opt to finance a car regardless of the fact whether they bank with it or not,\u201d he added.
\n\u201cHaving an account with a particular bank should not be obligatory to finance a car from the same bank.\u201d
\nAccording to the existing credit lending policy, an individual must have his salary account with the bank to obtain loans.
\nHe said that this is something like denying a customer the opportunity to explore what rate of interests and other value-added services other banks are offering. It does not promote healthy competition.
\n\u201cSo long as the needful protection and credit risks are properly measured, stricter regulations hamper growth prospects.\u201d
\nAsked about the monopoly of car dealers and higher prices in Qatar, El Talkhawi, said: \u201cCompared with the UAE and Saudi markets, from the sales perspective, the Qatari market is relatively very small and still underdeveloped, given that, it does not support most of the growth strategies.
\n\u201cBesides, higher fixed expenses (capital expenditure) and low sale volumes, car dealers are compelled to ask for marginally higher prices.\u201d
\nAiming to enhance its market share, Q-Auto is working aggressively and is set to introduce a host of value-added after-sale services for customer satisfaction.
\nEl Talkhawi hinted that the top management of the company is considering extending the ongoing sales promotion until August 31.
\n\u201cWe are mainly focusing on improving our service facilities which are under construction. Q-Auto is developing a state-of-the-art after-sale service workshop in Industrial Area and will introduce many innovative services,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cUnder its \u2018quick service facilities\u2019, Audi customers would be able to drop off their cars to get services done from two major locations that would be very accessible.
\n\u201cWe are also in the process of having two mobile service trucks imported from Germany.
\n\u201cThese service vehicles would be fully equipped with oil tanks, compressors and other computerised facilities that will be able to diagnose and handle minor problems such as tyre-rotation, fixing brakes, oil change and many others, at the customer\u2019 door step or workplace, without having them going to our service facilities,\u201d he said.
\nTo avoid traffic-related problems, soon it will introduce \u2018nigh-shift drop-off services\u2019 where a customer will just need to drop keys and information in a sealed envelope.
\n\u201cWe are set to open a new showroom in September in Doha, and another world-class showroom at Salwa Road by the year-end to serve better,\u201d El Talkhawi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite stricter auto financing regulations, car sales in Qatar are expected to grow 20 percent this year compared with 2012 with sales volumes touching nearly 100,000, says an industry expert.
\n\u201cAccording to the Middle East Automobile Council (MEAC) estimates, in 2012, over 80,000 new vehicles were sold, and this year Qatar\u2019s auto sector is forecast to sell up to 95,000 units, despite Qatar Central Bank\u2019s (QCB) stringent auto financing policies,\u201d said Mohamed El Talkhawi, General Manager of Sales and Marketing at Q-Auto, the new dealer of Audi products in Qatar. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}