Business

The subsidiary in Cameroon of the South African telecoms group MTN International has done a rather good job in identifying mobile subscribers, which led to the deactivation of hundreds of thousands of non-identified chips from the second quarter of 2016. Indeed, in spite of this operation required by the government, which resulted in the loss of many subscribers for telephone operators, MTN Cameroon rather shows an increase in its subscriber base of 7.9% to 9.9 million subscribers.

In its financial report at year end 2016, the group MTN explains this performance of its subsidiary in Cameroon by the aggressiveness of its subscriber identification campaign, and the rapid reduction in the churn rate after the chip deactivation stage. Incidentally, in spite of “an improvement in its vitality towards the fourth quarter 2016”, reveals the Group's report, MTN Cameroon closed the year ending on 31 December 2016 with a decrease of 6.7% in its sales revenues. Partly due “to a fall in revenues of outgoing calls, affected in turn by a decrease in the actual rate as well as free minutes used in relation with the customer registration process”.

Data revenue of the mobile market leader in Cameroon, continued to progress last year. According to the Group's report, it experienced a 25.9% increase and thus represents 19% of the operator's total sales revenues. This growth in data revenues, we learn, is the result “of a surge in sales of specific data packages”; expansion in the 3G and LTE networks, notably with rolling out the 3G in 463 sites and LTE in 267 sites in 2016; and the rise in digital revenues (mainly MTN Play and MTN Zik offers), which have contributed 21% to data revenues.

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Rita Akana

08.Mar.2017

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Unconfirmed reports have surfaced again on a likely 20% export tax on log exports in Cameroon. This could have implications for other log exporting countries which may decide to follow suit or enjoy the competitive advantage such a tax in Cameroon would deliver. It appears the authorities in Cameroon have reversed the suspension imposed on around 30 concessionaires accused of failing to meet the requirements of their concession agreements. These concessionaires and others will all soon part in the annual bidding process for renewal of their concessions. This projected increase can be explained in two ways. 

First of all, with the continuous drop in oil revenues, the Cameroonian government is planning to create new income sources or increase the contribution of existing sources, to replenish a treasury increasingly called upon due to the major ongoing projects in the country and additional expenditure incurred by the fight against Boko Haram.

Thus, wood would be the adequate product to boost customs revenues. During 2015, there was a global volume of 938,455 tons of wood logs export from Cameroon to the world. Second, the increase on the log export tax would be like a government strategy meant to encourage logging operators to move into local processing.

This could also create added value for the entire national economy, as well as it could be a source of employment. 

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Rita Akana

06.Mar.2017

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The Cameroonian government is working towards the establishment of a supra-structure, which will merge all the duties and prerogatives currently attributed to the Société de Dévelopment du Cacao (Sodecao – Cocoa Development Company), the Office National du Cacao et du Café (ONCC – National Cocoa and Coffee Board) and the Fonds de Dévelopment des Filières Cacao-Café (Fodecc – Cocoa-Coffee Development Fund), we learned from reliable sources.

A source close to this project explains that the idea is through this merger, to end the dissipation of missions observed until now, as well as the spreading of energies through several entities which, despite important financial means made available to them, have not been able to produce the results expected in terms of reviving the cocoa-coffee sectors.

The new configuration announced in the management of the cocoa-coffee sectors in Cameroon is closely related to the one used before in the 90’s, with a National Commodities Marketing Board (Office national de commercialisation des produits de base, Oncpb) which presided over the destiny of the cocoa-coffee sectors. But, this public giant was liquidated with the liberalisation of the two sectors, whose results are questionable, mainly with regards to the quantity and quality of the production, and even the efficient management of producers, which seemed to have been handed over to the cocoa-coffee professional association.

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Rita Akana

01.Mar.2017

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Simplifying the payment of taxes will still be one of the main guiding principles of the Inland Revenue Service (DGI in French) this year, we learned at the end of the last coordination meeting of the central, external and decentralised services of the Cameroonian tax administration, organised in Maroua, in the Extreme-North region.

Indeed, to maximise the collection of revenue in 2017, DGI announced, among other innovations, “the installation of electronic terminals for the payment of income tax and other taxes in tax administration services, as well as the implementation of a cash payment system at bank counters; the extension of tax payment by mobile telephone and implementation of a declaration system through mobile telephone for small taxpayers”.

According to the tax administration management, meeting the State’s collection targets assigned to DGI in 2017 goes through this type of initiative. As a reminder, FCfa 1,843 billion are expected from DGI this year, against FCfa 1,715 billion in 2016.

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Rita Akana

22.Feb.2017

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The cotton production in Cameroon should drop by approximately 10,000 tons during the 2016-2017 season. Indeed, production forecasts from Société de Développement du Coton (Sodecoton), the agribusiness giant in Northern-Cameroon, officially peak at 248,150 tons of cottonseeds, against 258,000 tons produced during the last season.

Despite this slight decrease which can be imputed to the harsh climate, the company’s provisional figures shown during the Promote Fair, an economic event which ended on 19 February 2017 in Yaoundé; ginning activities, will ultimately, help getting slightly more fibres than during the past cotton season. Representing 109,000 tons in total, against 107,000 tons in 2015-2016.

The company’s crushing activities will be more dynamic during the current season, with a cumulated production of cotton and soy oil estimated at 17 million litres, in increase by 2 million litres compared to the previous season. Concurrently, cottonseed meal production, highly sought as livestock feed, is announced at 65,213 tons, a slight drop compared to the 66,000 tons produced in 2015-2016.

The turnover of the company is also expected to increase at FCfa 122.662 billion, against FCfa 114 billion during the previous season. To reach this target, Sodecoton launched a challenge meant to reward distributors who have the best turnover, and was able to get partners to boost the distribution of its cotton and soy oils in Southern-Cameroon.

The expected performances are the consequence of a slew of measures taken these past months by the management of this company, who has been facing financial difficulties for at least 2 years. Indeed, we learned from reliable sources, through its equity and with the support of the State of Cameroon, shareholder owning 59% of Sodecoton, 70% of the industrial equipment and fleet of the company were renovated, while the credit line negotiated with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), to purchase fertilisers to distribute to producers, was increased; moving from FCfa 8.5 to 13 billion.

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Rita Akana

22.Feb.2017

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With 3 million clients currently connected to its network, Nextell is the 3^rd mobile operator in the country in terms of customer base, far behind MTN and Orange Cameroun. In 2017, this telecoms operator owned by the Vietnamese firm Viettel, is planning to follow closely behind its competitors, by attracting 2 million new customers, to bring its customer base to 5 million clients.

The information was revealed this 17 February 2017 by Haman Oumar, Deputy Managing Director of Nextell. This was on the set of the Cameroonian private television channel Canal 2 International. To reach this goal, the same source explained, Nextell is counting the upcoming launch of “the real 4G”, specified Haman Oumar.

As a reminder, Nextell was the first operator to benefit from the authorisation to roll out the 3G technology in Cameroon. But, the delays observed in the company’s starting activities prevented it from profiting from the 2-year exclusivity granted by the Cameroonian government on this technology.

In March 2015, its two competitors MTN and Orange renewed their licences in Cameroon, with the authorisation to roll out 3G and 4G, which both operators launched the same year, within nine months of each other.

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Rita Akana

18.Feb.2017

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