OTC Healthcare in Algeria
Euromonitor International's OTC Healthcare in Algeria market report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be they new product developments, packaging innovations, economic/lifestyle influences, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts illustrate how the market is set to change.
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Tables: 11 | Publication date: Sep 2006
Why buy this report
- Get insight into trends in market performance
- Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change
- Identify market and brand leaders and understand the competitive environment
Product coverage
Adult mouthcare; Allergy care; Analgesics; Calming and sleeping products; Child-specific OTC healthcare; Cough; cold and allergy (hay fever) remedies; Digestive remedies; Ear care; Emergency contraception; Eye care; Medicated skin care; NRT Smoking cessation aids; OTC obesity; OTC statins; Vitamins and dietary supplements; Wound treatments
Executive summary
Substantial growth of OTC healthcare due to rising health awareness
The OTC healthcare industry realised good value growth of 12% in 2005 over the previous year, registering sales of DZD6 billion in 2005. This healthy growth primarily stemmed from improving consumer disposable income. Sales also received a considerable boost from the increasing awareness of health issues based on medical advice focusing on the need to look after the health with the help of products such as analgesics, dietary supplements and digestive remedies.
Chemists/pharmacies played an important role as this channel was active in establishing direct contact with consumers, which explains the good performance of value sales over the review period.
The healthcare system in Algeria
Before the review, a free national healthcare system was implemented to provide Algerians with better access to medicine and to hospital and out-patient care. The government then developed this further to focus more on disease prevention. However, recent political upheavals and economic uncertainties have left the healthcare industry with insufficient resources to serve the entire population. Inhabitants of rural areas often have difficulty in getting medical help while even city dwellers have to wait for treatment.
Algeria has a relatively young and rapidly growing population. About 30% of Algerians are under the age of 20. Families of four to eight children are common although family planning has been introduced. Maternal and infant protection centres have been established to provide advice and dispense contraceptives. A major effort was made to make family planning part of the religious practice so that it would have a wider impact. However, the programme emphasised birth spacing rather than birth control.
Algeria is divided into 185 hygiene sectors with a minimum of one hospital per sector. These sectors are then subdivided again into polyclinics which serve as triage centres. Algeria has 36,400 doctors which equates to one doctor per 1,120 inhabitants. There are 5,450 private pharmacies and 2,230 public pharmacies throughout Algeria.
Algeria's health problems are often poverty related and as the formal healthcare system is overburdened, many Algerians turn to alternative forms of medicine. Such practitioners treat patients with herbal cures, or recommend exercises, special baths or massage among other treatments.
The healthcare system has made clear progress, as shown both by the main disease indicators and by improved staffing, equipment and infrastructure. The government drew up a health programme in 2001 and pledged massive investment. The budget on health was 65% higher in 2004 than in 1999 and was focused on rebuilding infrastructure, building new installations and upgrading equipment.
Local players further threatened by the opening of frontiers
Local players, which already only held small industry shares, cannot compete with multinationals, and are unable to contend with the rapid influx of imported products. Local players lack the financial resources to engage in developing new products, to increase production, or invest in advertising and widen their distribution networks. This has obviously seriously impacted their performance. They also had to contend with the global rise in the price of raw materials preventing them from improving the quality of their products and maintaining low prices and consequently their competitiveness. The major product launches, innovations and offers seen over the review period were mainly initiated by multinationals.
The majority of consumers self-medicate
Most Algerians take medicine which has treated their symptoms successfully in the past or medicines which they have tried based on the recommendation of friends. Some also try products which have come to their attention through advertising on television or other forms of media.
Over the counter medication in Algeria was of concern to the Public Health Ministry with regards to the safety and public awareness of the side effects of OTC medication. The government encouraged pharmacists, the media and consumer protection programmes to encourage consumers to consult with their local pharmacist on their medical history or the symptoms they are treating before making their purchases.
Pharmacists claim consumers purchase OTC products to treat simple symptoms due to the expensive nature of medical consultation fees, which most Algerians consider to be too expensive for treating simple symptoms or medical issues.
Table of contents
OTC HEALTHCARE IN ALGERIA : MARKET INSIGHT
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2. OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
2.1 OTC Registration and Classification
2.2 Vitamins & Dietary Supplements Registration and Classification
2.3 Advertising
2.4 Packaging and Labelling
2.5 Distribution
2.6 Traditional Remedies
2.7 Generics
2.8 Consumer Expenditure on Health Goods and Medical Services
Table 1 Consumer Expenditure on Health Goods and Medical Services 2000-2005
Table 2 Life Expectancy at Birth 2000-2005
3. OTC HEALTHCARE SALES
3.1 Market Performance
Table 3 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: Value 2000-2005
Table 4 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: % Value Growth 2000-2005
3.2 Switches
3.3 Competitive Environment
Table 5 OTC Healthcare Company Shares by Retail Value 2001-2005
Table 6 OTC Healthcare Brand Shares by Retail Value 2002-2005
3.4 Leading Company Profile: Saidal Algerie
Summary 1 Saidal Algerie: Operational Indicators 2005
3.5 Retail Distribution
Table 7 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Distribution Format: % Analysis 2000/2005
Table 8 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector and Distribution Format: % Analysis 2005
3.6 Retailer Activity and Private Label Trends
3.7 Forecast Market Performance
Table 9 Forecast sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: retail value rsp: Value 2005-2010
Table 10 Forecast sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: retail value rsp: % Value Growth 2005-2010
4. DEFINITIONS