(MENAFNEditorial) Current turnover is AED260 million
Shifting from B2B to B2C next month
Dubai plant making 1000 types of panels
Plants planned in six countries including India and China
Rising demand for fire-retardant wall panels
Bollywood stars as Brand Ambassadors for two years
Anupam Lunawat: Focus on products boasting natural looks
Dubai, November 20, 2016: Keeping in mind the growing demand for environment-friendly and fire-retardant wall panels in most parts of the world, the Dubai-based RMD Board is targeting at doubling its turnover, boosting market share and introducing new products.
A division of Jebel Ali-based JRD International, it is shaping itself into a turnkey project services company and is investing in expanding its installation team by five times, focusing on aftersales service and customer follow-up.
RMD has invested extensively in researching the construction and interior decoration sectors and is moving towards adopting the one-stop shop concept to meet the demand of its growing base of customer across the world. It is launching an all-powered marketing campaign in line with its expansion plans which sees a 100 percent annual growth, remarked Anupam Lunavat, Managing Director.
One of its two Brand Ambassadors, Bollywood's hottest star, Hrithik Roshan, will appear at RMD Pavilion at The BIG5's biggest stand in Dubai on November 21 to promote the ever-growing brand at the four-day construction industry trade show. The top-notch star made it into history books by working a record 21 hours non-stop dance-and-action on the RMD's new commercial for the first time on big screen for a TVC, with the Bollywood actress, Jacqueline Fernandez, RMD's another Brand Ambassador. Both will remain Brand Ambassador for two years.
RMD Board is a manufacturer of wall panel products that serves as an alternative to the conventional wall decorative materials which helps a great deal in reducing fire hazards and deforestation. The pre-decorated wall and ceiling panel manufacturer has seen the demand rising across its markets landscape, including the Arabian Gulf region where Dubai had surpassed 100,000th hotel room inventory milestone and is to witness hitting 134,000 rooms mark by 2018.
RMD Board, in keeping with emerging demand, is focussed on products that boast the natural look of marble, granite, wood and leather, rather than artificial designs, says he, and added that RMD now has a new collection, designed taking into account these factors. It has invested in researching the emerging and future trends in the construction and interior decoration sectors, which prompted it to go for a one-stop shop concept to meet the customers' expectations.
The next big thing from RMD, he says, will be pioneering products for the external cladding industry which increasingly requires fire-retardant technology. RMD is in advanced stages to launch an impressive line-up of innovative products for the cladding sector.
From its state-of-the-art AED450 million, 40,000 square metres manufacturing plant of composite polypropylene (PP) boards in one of the world's largest free zones in Dubai outskirts, the company rolls out environment-friendly decorative wall panels. Since commissioning its first state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in 2012, the diversified conglomerate has been expanding the production capacity.
From an installed capacity of 12000 tonnes per annum, it plans manufacturing per day 30000 linear meters of boards in the near future. It has ambitious AED1.5 billion investment plans for 70 polypropylene manufacturing lines in seven countries. The company aims to reach global production of half a million metric tonnes per annum by 2016. The company is presently doing a turnover of AED260 million and it is eyeing AED3 billion turnover by the year 2020.
The company plans to have plants in six countries - India, China, Turkey, Russia, Brazil and USA - in the next seven years - not necessarily in that order.
Sagar Verma, President of RMD Division, JRD International, said the diversified product range are water-proof, termite resistant, certified fire retardant, highly durable, light-weight and 100 per cent recyclable. The use of PP in these engineered products replaces the use of wood, thus reducing carbon foot print, which is a global environment concern.
The plant uses energy efficient patented technology that creates honeycomb-like structures that gives these fire-rated boards excellent strength to weight ratio. The strength of these boards is so great, that they could be used in civil engineering and construction industry and they offers value-for-money as they are lightweight, reusable with an almost-zero attrition rate.
Their ease of installation and removal is un-rivalled vis--vis traditional materials. Unlike the traditional materials with short life span used in construction and interior decoration industry, often plagued by labour problem, the RMD product comes with 10 years guarantee and a 100 square metres area can be decorated in three to four hours. Any wall, old or new, can be decorated in this time frame through the DIY (Do It Yourself).
They said it has been technically approved by the biggest construction materials chain from Germany, Horanbach, which sells RMD through 138 stores in Eastern and Western Europe. They have also approved to market it though their stores on lines of IKEA.
RMD is the only company in the world making these products which are patented to it. The company, he said, initially educated the market in a low profile manner but decided it was right time to branding the product and coming out with Brand Ambassadors. The product, he added, will see a shift from Business-to-Business (B2B) to Business-to-Consumer (B2C) model from next month to start its new phase to marketing from New Year.
The product is now selling in 17 countries including, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Africa and entire six AGCC countries. It exports to Africa, CIS and South East Asia as well as countries such as India, Kenya, the UK, the US, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Sudan. It hopes to seek out in future further opportunities in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
According to industry figures, the wall panelling market in the six-nation Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council (AGCC) is projected to reach US$36.6 billion by the year 2022. Saudi Arabia is the biggest market followed by the UAE, together accounting for more than 60 per cent of the regional wall panelling market.
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