2009-12-15


Macro Cable Chairman Chaudhury Ahmed Shoaib shows the company's 'SMS Genuinity Concept' inscribed on a packet of cables. The company says customers will be able to identify real Macro cables through SMS.



Source: The Daily Star

A local cable maker has come up with an innovative idea to help customers check genuineness of its fire resistant (FR) cable in the face of counterfeit products that are flooding the market. Macro Cable has introduced an SMS-based system for the customers who can identify the original cables by sending a particular number to a dedicated SMS (short message system) station.
“An automatic feedback will confirm the genuineness,” said Chaudhury Ahmed Shoaib, chairman of Macro Cable. Shoaib said: “We have developed the SMS concept to help our customers escape from the clutches of counterfeit cables in the market.”
The company will launch its FR cable and the 'genuineness concept' at a formal programme next week, said its chairman. Bangladesh's cable market has been growing constantly for the past two decades with the present market size of around Tk 1,000 crore, said sector people.
The country had to depend on imported cables until late 1980s. But the situation has started changing rapidly since 1990s when a good number of local companies entered the manufacturing market riding on growing demand amid rapid urbanisation in the country, industry people said.
But the customers are being cheated with low quality counterfeit cables, as they are unable to understand the quality of the products they purchase from retailers.
“We have identified three major issues, which general customers often leave out in confusion,” said Shoaib. The issues are: Counterfeit products, specified quality products and conventional cable versus fire resistant cable. “Customers feel unprotected and they have no option but to encounter the counterfeit products,” said Omar Faruque, additional chief controller (marketing) of Macro Cable.
The 'SMS Genuinity Concept' will help customers buy genuine Macro cables, Faruque said. Macro Cable is a concern of Macro Group that has long been engaged in marketing of cable of reputed global manufacturers in the local market. The group has started manufacturing and sales in July this year.
The company also said they are the first to introduce FR cable in Bangladesh by importing quality copper and other raw materials. Now around 50 companies are involved in wire and cable manufacturing. Of those, BRB, Paradise and Eastern are the major players. According to the market insiders, BRB Cable alone holds around half of the total market share. Local manufacturers import copper, which is the main raw material for making wire and cables. But some use copper by melting scrap of ships, market players said.
Rural Electrification Board, Power Development Board, Dhaka Electric Supply Authority, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd, Bangladesh Railway, and pharmaceuticals and steel companies are the major buyers of industrial cables.