NIGERIA – Cadbury Nigeria Plc has said that it will focus on growing market share, expand and improve its distribution network as a way of achieving sustainable growth as delivering better returns to shareholders, reported the Vanguard Nigeria.
As the company strives to retain its market share, the company’s chairman Mr Atedo Peterside noted that the firm has outlined four key areas of attention to drive its growth ambition in 2018.
Efforts include driving growth ahead of competition to boost market share within its product categories.
In addition to ensuring sustainability in its aggressive approach to market initiatives, the firm will strengthen its focus on quality improvements in productivity and operational efficiencies to maximize its competitive advantage.
The company is looking to developing an organisation of high potential talent given that it has in the recent past encouraged principles of good business practices.
In its full year 2017 results, Cadbury managed to return to profitability from a US$819,944 loss it made in 2016 attributed to rising costs, devaluation of naira and inflation.
The maker of Bournvita announced in March that it had managed to post US$826,000 in profits, after the firm benefited from cost saving initiatives and 10% growth in sales.
According to the chairman, emergence from a loss position was as a result of four strategic strategies including price, competitiveness, aggressive route-to-market initiatives, sustained consumer driven activations and exponential growth in the company’s treat portfolio.
“We recorded impressive growth in all these four areas.
We implemented parity pricing on Bournvita for the first time in 10 years and unilateral pricing on our candy brands.
In our route-to-market drive, we achieved highest ever active coverage of 93,000 outlets nationwide.
The consumer-driven activations for our brands delivered double-digit growth and positively impacted on our top-line.
In addition, our treat portfolio contributed substantially to our profitability with Cadbury Hot Chocolate 3-in-1 brand delivering significant net revenue growth versus the prior year,” said Peterside.
Cadbury Nigeria approved payment of US$835,207 cash dividends to shareholders of the company for the 2017 financial year.
