Selling time

Mohammed Abdulmagied Seddiqi, chief commercial officer at Seddiqi Holding, says that Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons isn’t letting the Covid-19 crisis drastically alter the business model of one of the world’s largest luxury watch retailers

- VARUN GODINHO

Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. With a formidable portfolio of over 60 high-end watch and jewellery brands including Rolex, Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, retailing out of more than 50 locations across the UAE, it has become one of the largest luxury watch retailers not just here in the region, but in the world.

Mohammed Abdulmagied Seddiqi, chief commercial officer at Seddiqi Holding, is the third-generation family descendant running the business – one that has, like all the other luxury retail businesses globally, encountered significant headwinds this year due to the pandemic.

Taking a contrarian stand though, the company didn’t stop ordering timepieces even during the UAE’s lockdown period in which malls and retail stores were shut. “We took the risk of ordering from the companies during the lockdown because we believed that the pandemic is a short- to mid-term situation and we required pieces for our clients readily available for when things got back to normal,” says Seddiqi.

Bolstering those assertions were recently released figures by the Federation of Swiss Watch Industry, which showed that the UAE was Switzerland’s eighth biggest export market for its watches from January-June this year, with exports valued at CHF307.7m.

He says that the demand for watches hasn’t waned during the pandemic. To support that claim, Seddiqi cites the example of a limited-edition collaboration with independent watchmaker MB&F and Moser & Cie in June. The collection, limited to 15 watches exclusively made for customers in the UAE, was sold out before the watches even arrived in the country.