April 07, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18, 1428

KARACHI, April 6: The lawn market is virtually ruled by semi-organised or unorganised mills and by those market players who lift fabric for further dyeing and printing, mainly in the Punjab because of low prices.

Thus, the informal sector occupies over 90 per cent market share.

However, some three leading players hold less than 10 per cent market share owing to very high prices.

In the absence of any copyright rules, the designs introduced by leading players are stolen in just 24 hours; and within 36 hours the same design finds its way to the market at cheaper rates.Lawn buying season kicks off from March 1 and usually concludes on May 30.

An estimated 70-80 million metres of lawn is sold all over the country in just three months of the season in which three leading players have a minor market share.There are some 15-20 mills that cater to the needs of low and middle income group buyers.

The rate of average quality lawn is tagged at Rs250 and it can easily be purchased at Sunday Bazaars and shops in main markets.

A slight improved quality of lawn hovers between Rs350-and Rs400 per suit.

A good quality lawn can be bought between Rs500 and Rs600 while the lawns produced by Gul Ahmad, Al-Karam Textile Mills and Mohammad Farooq Textiles sell between Rs900 and Rs1,500 per suit.

Many women have a habit of buying cheap and low quality lawn as they dispose it of after three months of the season, so that they have a new design next year.

However, quality-conscious buyers and even well-off women do not compromise on fabric quality, and they are more curious about new designs and styles.

In the last one year, many popular female models have become designers as they lift fabric of normal quality and come out with new designs.

They cash in their name by charging very high prices of over Rs1,100 as they target a selected segment of society who do not have liquidity crunch.

However, the models-turned- designers are not lifting lawns from leading producers of lawn because these players are themselves producers and designers.

Because of tremendous disparity in the standards of living, women belonging to any financial status can now easily find lawn as per their pocket output.

However, many women have to compromise on quality in buying cheap lawn.

Many low-and-middle-income group women, who cannot dare having expensive lawns, fulfill their desire by waiting for the arrival of lawn designs by leading players.

They are certain of purchasing same designs at Rs250-400 per suit in the next one to three days when others mills flood the new designs in the market.

It has been noticed that many lawn sellers in markets and Sunday Bazaars are seen convincing women buyers that the Rs250-300 lawn is actually produced by the three leading players, but with different names and labels to cater to a specific class.

Director, Marketing, Al-Karam Textile Mills, Rafeeq Ibrahim, told Dawn that there was no truth in it that the organised mills are running parallel mills as it is not very easy in a market dominated by the informal sector.

“The three players produce high quality lawn with long staple American cotton and fine counts.

“Our customers know it and they pay high price for high quality,” he said, adding “even world class hazardous-free global standard dyes are used in lawn production.”

Because of high price, the market share of leading producers is very low, he informed.

About the designing, he recalled that last year the company produced 25,000 metres of lawn with a new design, but some players in the informal sector copied it and immediately released one million metres at Rs350-400 in just 36 hours.

On the export side, he said so far lawn was not being exported.

However, India can be a good market, but there were a lot of problems i.e. visa and customs.

On the other hand, Indian and Chinese ladies wear (not lawn) are arriving in huge quantities through Dubai and other illegal channels which is posing a threat to the survival of local industry.