Industrial and protective safety footwear continues to be a top-selling item at Saudi Leather Industries Company Ltd (SLIC), contributing an overwhelming portion of its sales turnover, the company reports.

The share of safety footwear in the 2010 sales turnover was 78.50 per cent against 76.5 per cent in the previous year. Sales of all kinds of footwear were SR46 million ($12.2 million) in 2010 and SR40 million in the previous year.

SLIC manufactures more than 40 different styles in industrial safety footwear under five main categories: Oxford, Slip-on, Chukka, Lace-Up and Pull-On. The company says its safety footwear conforms to the European standard EN 345. The soles are resistant to oil, acids and alkalis and are slip-resistant and non-conductive.

EN 345 implies the shoes include devices to protect the user against injuries caused by accidents in the industrial environment for which they been designed. For instance, it denotes they will have steel toe-caps to withstand the impact of 20 kg in weight falling from a height of 10.2 m. The protection standard also relates to compression corresponding to approximately 1.5 tonnes resting on the toe area.

Marketing and sales manager Sathish Kumar claimed that SLIC had a 70 per cent market share in Saudi Arabia for industrial safety footwear and was exploring new markets in Africa and Europe to supplement export sales.

SLIC’s next-important product category is military footwear, making up about 20 per cent of the turnover. The company also makes casual and women’s footwear and non-footwear items such as belts.

The company manufactures its products using technology transferred to it by Wolverine Inc, USA, and machines imported from the US, the UK and Germany. The company has upgraded quality from time to time with innovations including composite (non-metallic) toe caps and mid-soles, metatarsal guards and caster boots for the steel and foundry industry and electrical footwear up to 16 kV for metal industries.

No plans for JVs
The manufacturing facilities are located in Dammam’s Second Industrial City. The company has associates in the Gulf states, the wider Middle East and North and West Africa. Kumar stressed there were currently no plans for factory expansions or joint ventures. SLIC recently completed a factory expansion by adding a 30-station German-made Desma injection moulding machine which helped it enhance production capacity to 750,000 pairs annually. Output capacity in 2010 was 550,000 pairs.

According to Kumar, SLIC enjoys a market share of 95 per cent for military boots in Saudi Arabia.

About other footwear, he said that though the casual shoes market was a huge one, the challenges were complex and the company was now not concentrating on the general market preferring instead to serve a niche market.

Ladies footwear was progressing step by step and formal sales would take some more years to take off. A thousand pairs of such footwear were sold in 2010.

Kumar described the Gulf as an oversubscribed market. 'But we’re taking it as a challenge, broadening the customer base and working hard to attain higher confidence,' he said.

SLIC has Al Bilad Establishment as its main shareholder and is a member of Satra UK, a leading authority on international legislation and testing and on the technical aspects of a wide range of consumer products including footwear, leather goods, apparel, toys, safety products, furniture, floorcoverings, construction pro- ducts, and homeware.