Ahmed Al Maghribi Ties Its 25-Year Mark to Founding Day

Ahmed Al Maghribi Perfumes marked Saudi Founding Day in February 2026 with a flat 25% storewide cut that matched its 25th year. The UAE house called the nine-day offer symbolism, not spectacle. By late September it was counting 190-plus Gulf stores and lining up four new scents for Beautyworld Dubai.

The holiday sale was one beat in a longer retail build that started in Ajman in 2000, then leaned on Saudi doors, GCC malls and export lists that now reach far past the Kingdom’s calendar.

A 25% Sale Was the Easy Headline

The brand’s February 23, 2026 statement, issued from Riyadh, tied Founding Day to a completed quarter century of craft. From February 20 to 28 it ran a Founding Day sale of flat 25% off storewide, online and in shops. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five percent. The copy said the alignment was intentional.

“In a region where fragrance is culture, not commerce, relevance is earned slowly,” the same note said. It listed perfumes, concentrated oils, bakhoor and home scents, and it put more than 30 Saudi stores in Makkah near the Haramain, Medina, Riyadh and large malls.

That language treated the Kingdom as the emotional centre. The operating map is wider. The same statement already put more than 190 stores across the GCC. A later company note, dated September 25, 2026, kept that Gulf count and raised the export claim to 120-plus countries.

The 25th year had already been merchandised before Founding Day. On February 5, 2025, the house marked its silver jubilee with a raffle that named 57 winners, including a Jetour T2 SUV and seven iPhone 16s, and it promised a year of follow-on events plus a global expansion plan.

Kafeel Ahmed Started With One Shop in Ajman

Kafeel Ahmed, founder and chairman, is a Mumbai-born fragrance trader who built the house in the UAE. The company’s about page says he opened in 2000 with a home factory and a single shop, far from the luxury circuit, then pushed the work into a plant at Jurf Industrial Zone 3 in Ajman, P.O. Box 3805.

The February 2025 anniversary note called him a non-resident Indian specialist and put more than 1,000 people on the payroll. It also claimed about 55,000 loyal customers in the UAE, many of them Emirati and Arab buyers of oriental juice. Manufacturing, packing and shipping still run from that Ajman plant to shops and distributors.

It is a momentous occasion for all of us in the Ahmed Al Maghribi Perfumes family and we have built it to the current level together. We started the business with a vision and humble roots, growing from a small-scale operation to a well-known brand across the GCC.

Kafeel Ahmed, founder and chairman, February 5, 2025 anniversary note

He also called the house a UAE home-grown perfume brand that would add contemporary lines without dropping its signature quality. That is the identity the Founding Day copy later wrapped in Saudi roots: an Ajman maker asking to be read as Arabian craft, then as a Kingdom-day host.

Oman Held More Doors Than Saudi Arabia

The last country-by-country shop count the house published sat in that same February 2025 note, when the network was 180 GCC stores. Saudi Arabia was not the densest market on that list. Oman was.

GCC STORE COUNT IN THE FEBRUARY 2025 NOTE

By Founding Day 2026 the brand said it had over 30 Saudi stores. By September 25 it said 190-plus GCC doors, including over 90 in the UAE. It did not republish an Oman figure. The 2025 split still shows where the chain first stacked density: home market first, then Oman, then the Kingdom.

The 2025 note also said the company planned at least five new Saudi outlets, citing economic reforms and infrastructure work. A year later the Founding Day text still described the Kingdom presence as over 30, including holy-city and mall sites, which is a foothold, not a blanket of doors.

Older Saudi oud houses already fill malls and souks the Founding Day copy treats as daily life. Ahmed Al Maghribi is on the challenger side of that shelf, using a national day and a round-number discount to stay visible where it is still the smaller local chain.

What Saudi Founding Day Commemorates

Founding Day is a young holiday with a long backstory, which is why a perfume house can attach itself to it without waiting for National Day in September. King Salman issued the royal order of January 27, 2022 that made February 22 an official holiday under the name Founding Day.

FROM DIRIYAH TO THE 25TH YEAR

1. February 22, 1727: Imam Muhammad bin Saud becomes ruler of Diriyah and the First Saudi State begins, the date the modern holiday is built on.
2. January 27, 2022: King Salman decrees that February 22 each year will mark Founding Day and will be an official holiday.
3. February 22, 2022: The Kingdom holds the first Founding Day.
4. February 5, 2025: Ahmed Al Maghribi marks 25 years with a raffle and a year-long expansion pitch.
5. February 20, 2026: The house opens a nine-day Founding Day sale of flat 25% off storewide.
6. October 6, 2026: The same house is due on the Beautyworld Dubai floor with four named launches.

The foreign ministry’s Founding Day page traces the date to Imam Muhammad bin Saud in 1727, with Diriyah as capital and a line of later Saudi states after that. The brand’s February copy opened on a similar hush: Saudi Arabia, it said, does not celebrate its founding with noise, and scent has always carried the memory.

That is a useful frame for any Gulf perfume seller. IMARC Group puts the Saudi perfume market at $1.95 billion in 2025, and it projects $2.71 billion by 2034 at a 3.70% compound annual rate. It also finds Arabic scents at 51% of the product mix, premium goods at 61%, and men at 45% of the gender split, and it lists Ahmed Al Maghribi among the names on that field.

The Scents That Travel Without the Holiday Speech

The Founding Day note sold heritage and longevity. The bottles that move outside the Gulf are often the ones with a sharp, modern punch. Kaaf, a 2022 extra, is the name that keeps turning up when sellers restock. Oud and Roses, Leather, Ignite Oud and Ighra’a sit beside it on the same lists.

Those lists are not mall directories in Riyadh. They are day-to-day stock posts from perfume plugs, many of them in West Africa, quoting naira prices and promising nationwide delivery. That is what a 120-country export claim looks like when it is working: not a flagship on every high street, but a house name people already know how to spell when they want a bottle tonight.

The 25th-year collection points the other way, back at the founder’s clock. The K-Series, credited to Kafeel Ahmed, is sold as Past, Present and Future. The KSA catalog lists The Roots 2000, The Alchemy Lab 2025 and The Beyond 2050 as the three-bottle set. Listings around Founding Day also pushed Blush Noir, Khetaam, Nihlah and Bakhoor Marj through the same 25% window.

Shoppers argue over which juice to buy, not over whether they have heard of the house. Kaaf Noir in particular is treated as a want-list scent, the kind of bottle people say they can almost smell from a chat thread. That demand sits a long way from Diriyah, and it does not need a public holiday to move.

Four New Bottles Go to Zaabeel Hall

The next public bet is a trade show, not a national day. From October 6 to 8, 2026, Ahmed Al Maghribi Perfumes is due at Beautyworld Dubai’s 30th edition in Zaabeel Hall 7, Booth 26, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. A September 25 note promised four launches plus one unnamed flanker of a bestseller, kept off the card on purpose.

THE FOUR SCENTS SET FOR BEAUTYWORLD DUBAI

• D’Or the Oud: Named first in the launch list, an oud-led bottle aimed at buyers who still shop the house for wood and resin.
• Cobalt Absolu: A second new extra, pitched to importers walking the fragrance-heavy 2026 floor.
• Apex Symphony: The third named launch, grouped with the others as an early look for distributors.
• Tropical Wave: The fourth named scent, stretching the book away from bakhoor-and-oud talk toward a brighter extra.

A media spokesperson for the brand said Beautyworld has always been where fragrance and business meet, and that the focus now is partnerships, new markets and pushing the heritage further, with customers already counted in more than 120 countries. The unnamed fifth bottle, the note said, extends a current bestseller and is being talked about inside the company as one of the year’s strongest pieces.

Founding Day gave the house a Saudi calendar slot and a tidy 25% hook. Beautyworld is where it tries to turn that Gulf machine into more wholesale paper. The Ajman plant, the 190-plus shops and the African restock lists are already in place. From October 6, the work is to see who stops at Booth 26.