Dabur Egypt's sales for the first quarter of 2016 achieved a 25% increase, according to Moheb Kaiser, the company's marketing head. Kaiser added that the increase can be attributed to the company's investments in new products. Dabur Egypt achieved sales worth over EGP 377m in 2015. The upcoming launch of new products to Dabur's portfolio has the company aiming to reach more than EGP 420m in sales for this year, Kaiser said. Regarding the appreciation of the US dollar, Kaiser said that the higher dollar exchange rate led to increased costs, such as the price of raw materials and packaging materials, as the company imports most of these materials from abroad. Additionally, it affects the profit margin and puts pressure on the company to raise the price of its products. "We did not increase the prices of our products, with the exception of one or two products by 7-8%," Kaiser noted. "We are trying to decrease our spending on the amount of imported materials that we use, [despite using] a high percentage of imported materials, estimated at 70-80%. Most of our materials are not available in Egypt, and Egyptian materials are not cheap either." Kaiser pointed out that the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market is big in Egypt and is currently worth EGP 5bn, expecting growth to reach 6-8%—not exceeding 10%. He added that Dabur Egypt is considered a market leader in hair care products as it controls 70% of the market share in hair oil products, 55% of hair creams, 60% of hair masks, 10% of hair gels, a small percentage (around 2%) of the shampoo market, and about 5% of female hair removal products. He noted that his company has a great opportunities in the shampoo market, as it represents about EGP 1bn in the Egyptian market. The company will launch a new skin care product called DermoViva in the upcoming months. The company is also going to launch Hobby, an imported shampoo new to the Egyptian market, within the next two months, according to Kaiser. Dabur Egypt recently launched ORS (formerly Organic Root Stimulator), which is a product specifically designed for women with extra curly hair. Another product, Olive Oil Relaxer, has been designed for hair straightening, which is not widely available in the Egyptian market. "We export to North Africa and African countries. I think that the ‘proudly made in Egypt' brand needs to be marketed in some countries in North Africa and African countries as they prefer French products rather than Egyptian ones," said the marketing head. The company's exports to Africa do not exceed 3% of sales, but the goal is to increase this rate. It has about 20 distributors spread across Egypt that are tasked in distributing FMCGs, especially for middle- and low-income people. Dabur Egypt Limited is one of leading companies in personal care products in the Egyptian market. Vatika products are the most famous in Egypt, followed by Dabur Amla, and Dabur Meswak. The company has its own factory in Egypt in 10th of Ramadan City, located in an area spanning 20,500 sqm with investments worth EGP 100m. Source: Daily News Egypt
