Aggressive African expansion projects by Dangote Cement have started yielding positive fruits as the company, for the nine months ended September 30, 2015, recorded a turnover of N365.5 billion, a 17.8 per cent increase over its corresponding year’s figure.
The company, in the same period, exported 3.7 million metric tonnes of cement to neighboring countries. The export underscores the fact that Nigeria is now self-sufficient in cement production.
The Chief Executive of the company, Onne Van der Weijde, said: “I am pleased to report that sales from outside Nigeria have contributed nearly 29 per cent of volumes so far this year and 39 per cent in the third quarter, which demonstrates that we are diversifying successfully and quickly gaining market shares in new countries.”
While revealing that the company has just acquired 2,000 new trucks to help improve its logistics capabilities and enable it enhance its export of cement to neighbouring countries, he said: “Our key target will be Ghana, where we already have an import terminal that is at present supplied from outside the ECOWAS region.”
The nine months unaudited results released on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed that the cement giants’ earnings per share rose by 18.6 percent to N9.80.
Profit before tax at N166.9 billion for the nine months ended 30th September 2015 represents an increase of 8.4 percent compared to N154 billion in the 2014 corresponding period.
A breakdown of the results indicated that the cement group posted an operating profit of N173.5 billion, 6.8 percent higher than N162.5 billion generated in 2014. Nigerian operations accounted for N162.7 billion, West & Central Africa N2.9 billion, while South & East Africa did N7.4 billion.
Revenue rose by 17.8 per cent to N365.5 billion following strong performance of non-Nigerian factories while gross profit grew by 13.5 percent to N226.8 billion.
Onne van der Weijde further said: “Our new operations have made strong starts right across Africa and this has helped to offset the impact of a subdued economy in Nigeria. We remain optimistic that our home market of Nigeria will recover and this will restore growth and improve overall profitability.
We hope our new pricing strategy will contribute to the country’s economic recovery and particularly urge the Government to begin building more robust roads using concrete instead of imported asphalt”
Dangote Cement is Africa’s leading cement producer with three plants in Nigeria and recently opened factories in Ethiopia, Zambia, South Africa, Senegal and Cameroon. It is a fully integrated quarry-to-customer producer with production capacity of 29.25Mta in Nigeria. Our Obajana plant in Kogi state, Nigeria, is the largest in Africa with 13.25Mta of capacity across four lines. The Ibese plant in Ogun State has four cement lines with a combined installed capacity of 12Mta. The Gboko plant in Benue state has 4Mta.
