Dangote Group says it is targeting to control more than 30% of market share of Cameroon’s cement market by the end of the year given the acceptance of its brand, Dangote 3X cement, launched into the market earlier this year.
As expected Dangote Cement will achieve this through its number 1 weapon, Pricing!!! Dangote Cement and indeed most companies in the Dangote Group use aggressive pricing as a way to shove off competition thereby taking a major slice of market share.
The General Manager of Dangote Cement Abdullahi Baba, Cameroon further confirmed this as follows;
“The site we acquired was a sport or playing field and today we have converted it into a $150 million valued cement manufacturing plant; we have created an economic centre in Duoala because 30 per cent of the raw materials is sourced locally here,” Baba said.
“We commenced production in March and with an aggressive marketing activity, I can assure you that we are here for a long term business with what we are doing.
“Despite the high quality we have brought into the country, our price remains the lowest in Cameroon and the product has been widely accepted at such a short period. We are targeting about 30 per cent of the market share and we also target exporting about 30 per cent of the total production from this plant,” he added.
“Many block makers and masons in Duoala now use our cement exclusively and they say they like the fineness, colour, high yield and high quality. Although in the country, less than 15 per cent of the outlets have it now, we intend to double our distribution drive and to reach 50 per cent by the end of this April,” Baba said.
“But we will work to monitor our distributors as we sell more into the market because middlemen will capitalise on the high quality and low factory price we are giving them to sell at higher retail prices and this won’t do our business any good,” he added.
At 4,500CFA (about N1,100), the Dangote Cement brand no doubt is already the cheapest in Cameroon. The company made a entered the Cameroon in 2012 with the commencement of the construction of a 1.5 million tonnes capacity per annum cement plant in Cameroon’s commercial city of Douala at an estimated cost of $150 million.
