Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s sale revenue fell by 3% year-on-year to US$1.30bn in the first half of 2019 from US$1.34bn in the same period in 2018. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 11.4% to US$605m from US$683m. Cement sales volumes decreased slightly to 12.3Mt. Revenue, earnings and sales volumes all fell in Nigeria but only earnings fell for its operations outside of the country.
“Group sales volumes were only slightly down on last year and this was a solid performance against the impact of delayed elections and increased competition from new capacity in Nigeria, as well as operational and economic challenges in key territories such as Ethiopia and South Africa. However, we saw a stronger performance from Tanzania, which is now running on gas turbines, and also from Senegal, where our sales volumes are more than 100% of our rated capacity,” said Joe Makoju, the group chief executive officer of Dangote Cement.