Oriental Weavers has a unique business model that allows it to achieve consistent, sustainable growth. The company is a global, low-cost producer using efficiency, technology and geography to deliver superior margins. At the same time, full integration – backward and forward – smoothes and optimizes costs, allowing economies of scale and scope. A flexible production capacity allows quick responses to market conditions while production across all price points fully penetrates markets. Finally, the Group’s global experience and presence ensures unmatched global market intelligence.
Oriental Weavers is focused on Organic Growth, expanding our Global Footprint, enhancing our Local Dominance, ensuring Diversification, and furthering Vertical Integration.
Organic Growth
A flexible production mix that can fluidly adapt to shifting market demand allows OW to set an order-driven production schedule that is highly efficient and persistently at full capacity utilization, with a steady backlog. In essence, this allows for Organic Growth with the Group level, setting expansion plans in parallel with developing market trends.
Global Footprint
OW’s truly global presence helps streamline its manufacturing and distribution operations while facilitating on-the-ground market insight. At the Group level, international sales account for almost 65% of revenues supported by manufacturing facilities in Egypt, the USA and China with distribution hubs in the USA, UK and Dubai. OW rugs and carpets are sold across more than 150 countries.
Local Dominance
The Group is the leading provider to the Egyptian market, with local sales accounting for a significant portion of OW’s total revenues (35% in 2018). Sales in Egypt are supported by OW’s ability to cater to all price points, as well as the market’s demographic trends, including population growth, a growing middle class and cultural factors that encourage purchases of new floor coverings for weddings and graduation gifts. In Egypt, Oriental Weavers has 248 showrooms, including the largest rug showroom in the world, and aggressive expansion plans to capitalize on the strong fundamentals here.
Diversification
An important cornerstone of OW’s strategy, Diversification allows the Group to stay on top of market trends and achieve sustainable, organic growth. OW recently added two business lines—Axminster and Tapestry & Gobelin—which was a move into higher profit margin products geared toward the hospitality industry and was well-received by the market. Most recently, OW is diversifying into home furnishing.
Vertical Integration
OW’s Vertical Integration strategy embraces the complete carpet care and rug manufacturing process, from spinning and dyeing yarn to locally producing the polypropylene granules used in making synthetic fibers and blends thus guaranteeing quality and value for every rug. This cornerstone of OW’s strategy, in particular, allows for greater cost reductions and complete control over the manufacturing process.
The company embarked its strategy of vertical integration in 1983 with the establishment of 10th of Ramadan Spinning Company, to satisfy OW’s wool fiber requirements. Egyptian Fibers Company (EFCO) and Oriental Weavers Fibers (OWF) were established in 1987 and 1993 respectively, securing OW’s supply of polypropylene fibers. Moreover, EFCO exports a portion of its production to Arab and European countries.
Sphinx, the group’s U.S. distribution arm was established in 1991, and Oriental Weavers International (OWI), the group’s export-oriented facility was founded in 1999 in the tax-free zone in the 10th of Ramadan City. Most recently, the Group established King Tut, in 2011, a new yarn production facility with an annual capacity of 100 tons daily. Actual production started in 2012. The new factory produces nylon, which is the primary raw material used by MAC printed and tufted carpets.
With excess capacity, Oriental Weavers is not only self-reliant on yarn, but it is also able to export yarn to the US.