UAE led the way to Toshiba's unique three-year warranty

Dubai-headquartered Al Futtaim Electronics first began offering a three-year warranty on Toshiba laptops in 1997, when the manufacturer's own warranty was for 12 months.

The benefit became such a big sales generator in the UAE that Toshiba's European computer systems division in Germany - which is responsible for the Middle East and Africa markets - adopted the policy for its entire regional operations.

Now, three-year warranties are the international standard for all Toshiba mobile computers

"We saw how well the policy worked as a marketing tool for Al Futtaim and realised that the same benefits would follow if we introduced it regionally and internationally," said Ahmed Khalil, Middle East regional manager of Toshiba computers.

For Al Futtaim, the extended warranty capitalised on the very low failure rate experienced with Toshiba models sold by the distributor.

"We have been handling the computer products for fifteen years. In the last eight years fewer than one percent ever came back for repair, far less than the industry average," said Ramesh Muralidharan, general manager of the company.

"Clearly, this was a big marketing plus-point which deserved more emphasis. We were quite confident that we could offer a three-year warranty because our experience had proved that this was justified.

"No other manufacturer is prepared to give a three-year warranty which underlines the quality and workmanship that is built into Toshiba's mobile products."

Toshiba is the market leader for mobile computers in Europe, Middle East and Africa with a 13 per cent market share - 1.6 percentage points ahead of its nearest competitor. In the Middle East alone, Toshiba has a 25 per cent stake of the total mobile PC market.