Mamas & Papas launches eighth international store in the Kingdom of Bahrain

This much anticipated store is the first of its kind to open in Bahrain and covers 8700 sq ft of retail space, making it one of the top quartile Mamas & Papas stores in the Middle East.

The store opening expands the retail portfolio of Mamas & Papas across the Middle East by the UK-based company to four countries including Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and now Bahrain. The retail operation is managed by franchise operator, Al Tayer Group who successfully launched the nursery brand and continues the strategy to roll out more stores in major locations across the region in the coming months.

The eighth store opening in the Manama Seef Mall offers a prestigious shopping destination catering to quality-conscious residents and visitors to Bahrain. Seef Mall opened in 1997, and was designed by Raglan Squire and Partners. Since it opened the mall has become the top shopping location in Kingdom of Bahrain, attracting a high volume of business both from the domestic population and from Western expatriates.

Seef Mall currently receives over 80,000 visitors per week and offers an exotic combination of international retail brands boasting four large anchor stores, two food courts, two cinema multiplexes offering sixteen screens and Magic Island, one the first family entertainment centre of its kind in the Middle East.

Designed in an Arabesque style with glass domes, stained glass windows and marble flooring, the Mall currently stands over 100,000 square metres and represents the largest shopping mall and entertainment complex in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Allen Hill, Mamas & Papas Associate International Franchise Director on how researching the domestic market gave the brand an extra advantage.

"The opening of our new Bahrain store continues our progressive route down the path in making Mamas & Papas into the world's number one nursery brand. The Bahraini retail market is a vibrant and exciting opportunity and the initial trading has been well above our expectations highlighting a previously untapped demand for quality design led nursery products. In addition to the domestic market, The King Fahad Causeway link from the city of Khobar in Saudi Arabia to the island nation of Bahrain brings a large influx of new customers on a weekly basis into the Bahraini market, which gives an added fiscal dimension to the continued success with currently enjoy with our commercial partners, the Al Tayer Group."

Richard Faulkner, Deputy Chief Executive of Mamas & Papas at the forefront of the brand's global expansion plan commented,

"We are currently working on a further fourteen stores with Al Tayer Group and we hope to have these open within the next twelve months. We are also talking to potential partners in Turkey, Greece, Taiwan and South Korea and have already chosen partners for Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. We expect to see an upsurge in our international store opening programme this year and next."