http://www.logisticsmiddleeast.comT
he beauty industry in the Middle East is
growing at double the global average,
and is on track to hit US $15.9-billion
by 2021, according to venture capital
firm Millennial Capital. It’s “MENA
Beauty Care Report” finds that the re-
gion’s beauty sector, which includes beauty and personal
care, will grow at 8.5% for the next three years, while
the global average is just 4.2%.
For this reason, Khamid Ismatullaev, the founder
and CEO of Worldwide Distribution Center, is confi-
dent of steady growth in the coming years, despite an
overall lackluster FMCG logistics market. His company
achieved 20% growth in the first four months of 2019.
He founded WDC eighteen years ago in Dubai to dis-
tribute multicultural beauty products in the region, and
is now reaping the rewards of that pioneering effort.
WDC is one of the largest FMCG retail and wholesale
distribution companies in the Middle East, specialising
in supplying hair and body care products, perfumer-
ies, soap and baby care items. The company supplies
thousands of international, local and multicultural
brands to retailers across the Middle East, Africa,
East Asia and CIS.
“We started bringing in multicultural
beauty products back in 2000, when no
one else was considering it,” he told Lo-
gistics Middle East on the sidelines of
Beautyworld Middle East in Dubai. “Back
then we were a small business filling a gap
in the market, because consumers who
are not Caucasian use different profile
of products that caters to their skin toneand hair. We have always been
located on the USA pavilion
though because the majority of
our manufacturers are based in
America and we distribute for
them in the region.”
This is important because
among the key categories that
contribute most of the beau-
ty and personal care market
size (according to Millennial
Capital) are skincare, haircare,
colour cosmetics, fragrances
and men’s grooming. However,
globally, the skincare categorydominates the market. The mar-
ket has grown tremendously
then, and gesturing around
the busy floor of Beautyworld
Middle East, Ismatullaev points
out that it looked very different
when he first attended.
“When I did the first show
no one was here, I was the first
among the specialist beauty
FMCG distributors. Today look
at it, Dubai is now a logistics
hub for multicultural products,”
he says. “And it’s our logistics
hub as well. We have a ware-FAST^ FACT
8.5%
THE REGION’S
BEAUTY SECTOR WILL
GROW TWICE AS FAST
AS THE GLOBAL AVER-
AGE IN 2020.WHEN I DID THE FIRST
SHOW NO ONE WAS HERE, I
WAS THE FIRST AMONG THE
SPECIALIST BEAUTY FMCG
DISTRIBUTORS. TODAY LOOK
AT IT, DUBAI IS NOW A LOGIS-
TICS HUB FOR MULTICUL-
TURAL PRODUCTS”COVER | WORLDWIDE DISTRIBUTION SERVICES
22 AUGUST 2019 | LOGISTICS MIDDLE EAST