Certified Pre-Owned: Chat with Mahesh Rohra

The GCC market and UAE in particular is welcoming Certified Pre-Owned models to their automotive industry. Mahesh Rohra should know. He spent 10 years at Al Futtaim pioneering the Automall, then moved on to Arabian Automobiles where he led the growth of Certified Pre Owned division with solid year on year growth. Today Arabian Automobiles has a distinguished Certified Pre Owned department with over 600 cars in stock. We had a quick chat on the growing trend of Certified Pre Owned Cars:

YM: How’s the CPO business growth so far? 

MR: Better than ever. Our company had 260% growth in last three years, with 30% growth last year for CPO. We launched Nissan Certified Pre-Owned in October 2010. In September last year we launched Infiniti Certified Pre-Owned and Renault Certified Pre Owned is in the pipeline as well. We also now have the largest display of certified pre owned cars in UAE on Sheikh Zayed Road. So basically, in addition to AW Rostamani Certified (which includes non-Nissan cars as well), we have separate Certified offerings from individual brands as well. 

YM: So won’t there be competition or cannibalization between AW Certified and individual Certified offerings of, say Nissan or Infiniti?

MR: To some extent yes, however we view competition in a positive light as it will help the consumer eventually. 

YM: What distinction do your certified cars have in comparison with, say used cars in Awir Automarket or Abu Shagara in Sharjah?

MR: First of all, we offer certain guarantees, such as 1) There will be no frame damage 2) Car will be less than 5 years old 3) Mileage will be 80,000 km or less. These are pre-requisites of any certified car we sell. In addition, we have a 145 point check along with our warranties as well. Finally, since 75-80% of cars purchased are financed by a bank or finance company, it must be noted they charge less interest if the car is certified pre owned. The difference in interest rate is around 0.5% – 0.75%.