OTC Healthcare in Cameroon
Euromonitor International's OTC Healthcare in Cameroon 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: 9 | Publication date: May 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
Demand driven by multiple factors
OTC healthcare value sales in Cameroon witnessed strong growth in 2005, driven by multiple factors. These include, a half percentage point increase in VAT that occurred with the introduction of a new finance law in January 2005, weak consumer purchasing power, unfavourable tropical weather conditions, the high prevalence of communicable diseases and pests, inefficient legislation, growing counterfeit market, non-existent social security system guaranteeing health insurance, agriculture-dominated stressful work styles and the increasing presence of generic drugs in the market.
Being a former pro-socialist economy with a huge State presence in the market, the Cameroon economy is currently undergoing restructuring with a view to adapting it to the exigencies of a free market economy. However, this restructuring process has come at a high cost for Cameroonian households, who have seen their purchasing power plummet by at least one fifth over the last decade. Furthermore, the structural reform implemented by the State since the 1990s have considerably reduced the latter's capacity to provide basic public goods, ensure social security and enforce legislation.
To make matters worse, since 2003, the country has been faced with a severe and particularly long dry season which favours the growth of communicable diseases, top amongst them being cough and malaria parasites. In the face of declining consumer purchasing power, inefficient health insurance care, and increasing availability of cheap non-prescription generic drugs, Cameroonian households have resorted to OTC healthcare as a matter of survival.
Chemists/pharmacies retain lion's share in retail distribution
OTC healthcare retail distribution in Cameroon is dominated by chemists/pharmacies, followed by drugstores/parapharmacies. However the importance of chemists/pharmacies in retail distribution has been declining from 37% retail share in 2000, to 29% share in 2005, due in part to the emergence of generic drugs, direct selling and the proliferation of street drug vending.
Prominent amongst the sectors that have been affected by street drug vending are analgesics, cough, cold and allergy (hay fever) remedies, and digestive remedies. Also, the increasing importance of hospital sales, especially in the wound treatments sector, as an alternative to OTC healthcare can be used to explain the apparent decline in OTC retail distribution.
Analgesics is dominant sector
Throughout the review period 2000-2005, analgesics are the dominant sector in Cameroon's OTC healthcare market valued at over CFAF 22 billion in 2005. Systemic analgesics are the most common sub-types in the Cameroonian market.
This is attributable to a number of factors. Firstly, unfavourable tropical weather conditions. The prolonged dry season faced by the country over the last three years has favoured the survival and expansion of anopheles mosquitoes that causes the malaria parasite. Secondly, degenerating environmental conditions in urban as well as in the rural areas characterized by deficient drainage systems and poor household refuse collection have provided a fertile ecosystem for mosquitoes and other bacteria that cause air-borne diseases. Thirdly, analgesics are the first medication Cameroonians use to start treating the cold-like symptoms even though it can be malaria. High number of Thai malaria cases contributes to the analgesic consumption due to the fact that it is used in combination with anti-malaria remedies.
Sanofi-Aventis captures leadership in a fragmented competitive environment
A key feature of the competitive environment of OTC healthcare in Cameroon is its high degree of fragmentation in terms of shares. The top 10 manufacturers accounted for only 44% of market value sales in 2005, while all other players retained shares of about than 1-2% in 2005.
The considerable size of the Cameroonian OTC healthcare market favours the marketing activity of pharmaceutical companies, which has led to intense competition for market shares. International companies; the top five being Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis AG, Johnson & Johnson Inc, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc, are the leading players in Cameroon's OTC healthcare market. Following its merger with Aventis, Sanofi which already ranked among the most dynamic players became the market leader in 2005.
Direct selling is gaining importance
Since 2002, direct selling of OTC healthcare has become increasingly important in Cameroon. The leading direct selling company in Cameroon is the Chinese multinational Tianshi Group Co Ltd, founded in Beijing 1995. Tianshi's products are well appreciated by Cameroonian consumers for their efficacy and price competitiveness, and are an exhibition of the prowess of Chinese traditional medicine.
Tianshi's focus in the Cameroonian market is in the vitamins and dietary supplements sector, and to a lesser extent, on the calming and sleeping products sector. Growing concerns about diet amongst the general population and HIV/AIDS patients in particular, are among the factors spurring the demand for vitamins and dietary supplements in Cameroon. Tianshi currently has over 20 sales agents for its products in the city of Yaoundé alone.
Bright future for herbal and traditional medicine
As weather conditions continue to be unpredictable, parasites become increasingly resilient to existing drugs, environmental degradation persists, and the current trend in self-medication continues, chances are that patients will become more and more immune to standard OTC medicine, which will have little solution to offer for them, thereby, inadvertently, boosting growth in herbal/traditional medicine.
Table of contents
OTC HEALTHCARE IN CAMEROON : MARKET INSIGHT
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2. OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
2.1 OTC Registration and Classification
2.2 Vitamins and Dietary Supplements Registration and Classification
2.3 Advertising
2.4 Packaging and Labelling
2.5 Distribution
2.6 De-listing or De-reimbursement
2.7 Traditional Remedies
2.8 Homeopathy
2.9 Generics
2.10 Life Expectancy
Table 1 Life Expectancy at Birth 2000-2005
3. OTC HEALTHCARE SALES
3.1 Market Performance
Table 2 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: Value 2000-2005
Table 3 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: % Value Growth 2000-2005
3.2 Switches
3.3 Competitive Environment
Table 4 OTC Healthcare Company Shares by Retail Value 2001-2005
Table 5 OTC Healthcare Brand Shares by Retail Value 2002-2005
3.4 Leading Company Profile: GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)
3.5 Leading Company Profile: Sanofi-Aventis
3.6 New Product Developments
3.7 Retail Distribution
Table 6 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Distribution Format: % Analysis 2000/2005
Table 7 Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector and Distribution Format: % Analysis 2005
3.8 Retailer Activity and Private Label Trends
3.9 Forecast Market Performance
Table 8 Forecast Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: Value 2005-2010
Table 9 Forecast Retail Sales of OTC Healthcare by Sector: % Value Growth 2005-2010
4. DEFINITIONS