General Motors, the car-maker behind brands such as Cadillac, expects to boost sales in the Middle East and Africa with the help of the launch of its Chevrolet electric vehicle and the lifting of the driving ban on women in Saudi Arabia.
“We are building on our existing momentum in the market as we see good appetite for future growth,” John Roth, president and managing director of GM Africa and Middle East, who assumed his role in June this year, said on Monday. “Currently, we are in touch with our dealer partners and also government officials to expand our overall footprint while exploring new sales opportunities in this region.”
Last month, General Motors sold its first Bolt EV, Chevrolet's first electric vehicle, in the region as automakers vie to sell more of such cars. Tesla cars are already used by Dubai taxis as the emirate moves closer to its goal of converting 25 per cent of total journeys into driverless journeys by 2030.
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, women were allowed to drive in the kingdom in June, a move that is expected to create a uptick in car sales.
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“We have two dealer partners in Saudi Arabia and they are doing a great job for us,” said Mr Roth. “More specifically, as the market opens up, you start seeing female consumers from the driving point of view. We also see good opportunities in expanding our digital landscape there.”
The lifting of the ban on women drivers — part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 to modernise the country — is also expected to boost women's employment and add $90 billion (Dh330bn) to economic output by 2030, according to a Bloomberg estimate
The three largest markets for GM in this region remain Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.
“Our full size SUVs - Tahoe, Yukon and Suburban - are enjoying double digit market growth in Saudi Arabia during this financial year,” said Mr Roth.
For GM, Egypt was the best performing market in the second quarter of this year. Egypt recorded 35.6 per cent gain in sales, when compared with the same quarter last year, while the North African market sales grew by 29.4 per cent during the same period. Mr Roth declined to give sales figures for other individual countries or for the region as a whole. Chevrolet remains one of the best performing brands in this region, with an uptick in sales by up to 1.5 per cent in the last quarter. GM, which recorded a net profit of $1.1 billion worldwide for the first quarter of 2018, is planning to make new investments in the GCC.
“This investment comes with a broader vision around the overall business, while keeping long-term targets in mind,” stated Mr Roth, who declined to share investment figures, adding, “We are making investments in the right technology to meet consumers’ needs.”
General Motors, which had announced in June plans to deliver 10 new electric vehicle models in China by 2020, is facing issues with its Chinese-made batteries as they did not meet GM's performance and safety standards during testing. Mr Roth affirmed that the company follows global engineering standards.
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Draw for Europa League last-16
Istanbul Basaksehir v Copenhagen; Olympiakos Piraeus v Wolverhampton Wanderers
Rangers v Bayer Leverkusen; VfL Wolfsburg v Shakhtar Donetsk; Inter Milan v Getafe
Sevilla v AS Roma; Eintracht Frankfurt or Salzburg v Basel; LASK v Manchester United
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Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
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Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
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Ajax v Juventus, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Match on BeIN Sports
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Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
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How to invest in gold
Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.
A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.
Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”
Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”
Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”
By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.
You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.
You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.
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Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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