Ethiopia tops the list of African countries  in the consumption of cement manufactured by the Dangote Group.

According to an unaudited report of the company for the period spanning January to June 2017, the eastern African country took in a total of 1.1 million metric tons of Dangote cement.

Senegal followed suit with 0.6 million metric tons of the product sold by the Nigerian  company who announced a surge in its sales volume across the continent despite a drop in sales in its native Nigeria.

The report also shows that the record of sales across other African countries were 0.6 million metric tons sold in Cameroon, 0.5 million tons in Ghana, 0.4 million tons in Tanzania while Tanzania bought 0.3 million tons of the product.

“Our Pan-African operations are growing well and increasing markets share. We saw our first sales from Sierra Leone in the first quarter and our new plant in the Republic of Congo will be in production at the end of July, further increasing our footprint across Africa and strengthening our position as its leading manufacturer in cement,” Onne van der Weilde, Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group said.

The Group, which attributed the drop in the sale of the product in Nigeria to the rainy season and reduced level of ongoing construction works in the country, is regarded as Africa’s largest cement company with plants in Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Tanzania and South Africa.

In a related development, the latest Forbes real time billionaires ranking shows that the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote has dropped to 105th from the 51st position he occupied in 2016.

Although he maintains his position as Africa’s richest man, his net worth of $15.4 billion last year has currently dropped to $12.2 billion, a decline that has been attributed to the devaluation of the Nigerian currency.

Dangote’s highest position in the ranking of world billionaires came in 2014 when he was ranked as the 37th richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $25 billion.