Lagos - Dangote Cement, Africa’s biggest producer of the building material, said first-half profit rose 28 percent as the benefits of expansion helped make up for “uncertainties” in its home market of Nigeria.
Net income was 121.8 billion naira ($614 million) in the six months through June, compared with 95.4 billion naira in the same period a year earlier, the Lagos-based company said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday. Sales gained 16 percent to 242 billion naira.
The company has 40 million metric tons of installed capacity across three cement plants in Nigeria, an import terminal in Ghana and factories that have recently opened in Ethiopia, Zambia, South Africa, Senegal and Cameroon, it said.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude producer, has been hobbled by a halving of oil prices in the past year and the toll of an Islamic insurgency in the country’s north. The economy is expected to grow 4.8 percent this year, down from 6.3 percent in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Dangote Group chairman Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, said in June that the cement unit is investing in 16 countries on the continent to tap demand for building materials as governments invest in infrastructure.
The company is spending billions of dollars for expansion across the continent, it said in Thursday’s statement.
Dangote’s cement sales volumes for the first six months of the year rose 14 percent to 8.1 million tons, 22 percent of which were sold outside Nigeria, the company said.
Dangote shares were unchanged at 170.52 naira at 10:18 am in Lagos. The company is valued at 2.9 trillion naira.
BLOOMBERG