Distributors of Nigerian Breweries’ products say they were able to move products from the factory to the remotest parts of the nation due to the company’s expanded network and its quality of products.
Speaking to BusinessDay during the Distributor Awards in Lagos recently, which was aimed at rewarding high-performing distributors in 2024, the distributors said their work became easy due to the general acceptance of Nigerian Breweries’ products.
“Generally, our job was made easier by the quality of Nigerian Breweries’ products and their general acceptance,” said Christian Ukegbu, CEO of Redemption Resources Nigeria Limited.
“Every brand is well accepted in the market and the company has the best portfolio.” Nigerian Breweries’ products moved from Onitsha to Amawbia in Anambra State and to Kafanchan in Kaduna, thanks to a network of distributors in the pool of Nigeria’s biggest brewer.
This drove Nigerian Breweries’ revenue to a record N1.1 trillion in the financial year ended December 31, 2024. Its 2024 revenue represents an 81 percent increase from the N599.6 billion recorded in the corresponding period in 2023.
A further breakdown of the audited results revealed a significant 51 percent growth in group gross profit from N212.6 billion in 2023 to N320 billion in 2024. The operating profit equally grew significantly by 59 percent from N44 billion during the period in spite of the challenges of huge increase in input costs.
According to Aloysius Obute, chief executive officer of Ray Global Resources Limited, who is the largest distributor in Kaduna, selling Nigerian Breweries’ products was easy.
“Nigerian Breweries cares about its distributors and their welfare, which motivated us to do more,” he said.
“The brands are top-notch, which makes the company the leading brand in Nigeria today.”
For the distributors themselves, the whole effort involved hard work and perseverance, given the intense competition in the industry.
“It is just hard work. If you work hard, you need nobody to remind you that you have worked hard,” Obute said.
He pledged to do more in 2025, hoping that all the challenges of 2024 such as the foreign exchange crunch and scarcity of bottles will be overcome.
Olalekan Awosanya, zonal business manager, West, said every business in Nigeria started on a shaky note in 2024, noting that distributors helped the company to cut its losses.
“With the naira devaluation, businesses could not figure out how the year would pan out. But with the level of our committed distributors, we were able to weather the storm,” he said.
Nigerian Breweries celebrated its distributors who contributed to its 2024 performance on February 7. Scores of distributors were brought to Lagos, Nigeria’s economic capital, from Abuja, Kaduna, Onitsha, Aba, Ibadan and other parts of the country to receive awards for their performance. The distributors came from Lagos North, Lagos South, Benin, Ibadan, Aba, Enugu, Kaduna, Ibadan, and other parts of Nigeria.
“We made some very bold decisions around our strategies and around how we excite our consumers. That is the reward we are seeing today,” Awosanya said.
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