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Siqokoqela Mphoko

Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
REGIONAL automotive spare parts retailer, Motovac Group, will soon open its second branch in Bulawayo buoyed by impressive sales in its maiden year.

Motovac Zimbabwe managing director, Mr Siqokoqela Mphoko, said the company has plans to open another outlet on the periphery of the Central Business District.

The Botswana headquartered company opened its first shop in Zimbabwe last August and has a footprint in the Sadc region.

“Business is very good at Motovac, the margins are high. We are planning to open a second shop here in the next two months, we are in negotiations with a certain property owner to get a building towards the end of the CBD…but I think we have easily taken 40 percent of the market with this one shop,” said Mr Mphoko.

The company’s shop situated at No 128B Corner 13th Avenue and Fife Street has 40 000 lines of spare parts for various type of vehicles.

“We have got different kinds of spare parts, (as a Group) we have got about 68 000 lines that are available and in Zimbabwe we’ve got 40 000 of them that are available right now. We don’t believe in dealing with the middleman, we deal directly with the suppliers,” said Mr Mphoko.

Since the dollarisation of the country’s economy in 2009 there has been a surge in automotive spare parts and accessories outlets countrywide due to the significant rise in second hand vehicle imports mostly from Japan and the United Kingdom.

“That’s the situation (influx of second hand Japanese vehicles) in this particular market, that’s what we found so we cater for those cars. If there are people buying new Mercedes Benz here we cater for them as well, we do have parts for each and every car.

“We give you a warranty or a motor plan for each part, which means if you buy a part today it will have a warranty of 25 000 kilometres. We have got that support base as well that if we don’t have a particular part we can get it in two days. We have a system where we can look up for a part in Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique and the part will be here in two days,” said Mr Mphoko.