The management of Dangote Cement Plc, on Monday announced a 17.81 per cent growth in turnover to ?365.54 billion in the nine-month ended September 30, 2015, with sales from outside Nigeria contributing nearly 29 per cent of volumes so far this year.
Sales from Nigeria contributed 39 per cent in the third quarter turnover, which, according to Chief Executive of the company, Onne Van der Weijde, “demonstrates that we are diversifying successfully and quickly gaining market shares in new countries.”
Operating profit growth was however slower, rising by 6.82 per cent to N173.54 billion, while profit before tax stood at N166.91 billion, increasing by 8.35 per cent. Net profit improved by 12.47 per cent to N157.99 billion.
A statement by the group said aggressive African expansion projects by Dangote Cements have started yielding positive fruits.
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.
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, der Weijde 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.
“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 percent 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.
