The French magazine, Jeune Afrique, has just published its traditional ranking of the 500 largest African companies.
Unsurprisingly, the Algerian oil company, Sonatrach , retained its first place in the ranking with a comfortable lead, i.e. a turnover almost four times higher than that of its pursuer, the Nigerian oil company NNPC.
Cevital, the leading Algerian private group, has made a huge jump in the ranking, while Air Algérie occupies a lackluster place which places it in the second half of the table.
Thirteen Algerian companies appear in the African top 500, including 5 active in the energy sector.
The ranking offers a fairly faithful image of the Algerian economy, dominated by the energy industry and a still preponderant share of public capital.
Of the 13 companies, 10 are publicly owned and the first three are energy companies.
In addition to Sonatrach, three subsidiaries of the group also appear in the ranking.
Note that six Algerian companies exceed the turnover of one billion dollars.
At the top of African companies, we find Sonatrach, unbeatable, with a turnover of 77.325 billion dollars and a net profit of 11.847 billion.
Sonatrach achieved more than 10% of the cumulative turnover of the 500 companies classified, which amounts to 760 billion dollars.
The Algerian oil giant is followed by its subsidiary Naftal, 41st in Africa with a turnover of $4.013 billion and a net profit of $92 million.
The Algerian top 3 is completed by the electricity and gas operator, Sonelgaz, which has just entered the ranking, in 46th place.
Its revenue is $3.504 billion, while its net income is not available.
Cevital, the leading Algerian private group in the ranking, comes fourth in Algeria and 73rd place in Africa.
The Algerian agri-food group jumped 24 places forward.
At the last ranking, he was 97th.
Sonatrach, Cosider, Air Algérie…: the ranking of Algerian companies in Africa
Other large Algerian companies include three mobile telephone operators, two construction companies, two other Sonatrach subsidiaries, a private medicine producer, and an air carrier.
Cosider moved up five places, to 115th position in Africa, with a respectable turnover of 1.380 billion dollars and a net profit of 277 million.
The telephone operators Mobilis, Djezzy and Ooredoo follow each other in 147th, 239th and 251st African places with respective turnovers of 1.051 billion, 683 and 633 million dollars.
Note the beautiful ninth place in Algeria for Biopharm. The pharmaceutical group is the second Algerian private company in the ranking.
With a turnover of $612 million, Biopharm is ranked 254th company in Africa.
Air Algérie is only the tenth Algerian company and 343rd in Africa.
With a turnover of 394 million dollars, it makes significantly less than some of its African counterparts, notably Ethiopian Airlines (24th company on the continent all sectors combined and a turnover of 6.1 billion dollars), or EgyptAir, 97th and 1.7 billion in turnover, and even Royal Air Maroc has a turnover of 1.1 billion dollars which makes it the 133rd company in Africa.
In 11th place, we find the public construction and local industries group Divindus (426th in Africa and $270 million in turnover).
Next come the two Sonatrach subsidiaries, ENAFOR and ENTP, 448ᵉ and 472ᵉ, with respective turnovers of 245 and 212 million dollars.
The ranking highlights the predominance of extractive industries in the African economy, with 4 of the top 5 places occupied by energy companies.
The top 5 is made up of Sonatrach, NNPC (energy, Nigeria), Sasol (chemicals and plastics, South Africa), Escom (water, electricity and gas, South Africa) and Sonangol (energy, Angola).
South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, placed 6 companies in the top 10 and 14 in the top 20.
The first Moroccan company in the ranking (OCP, mines) comes in 9th place while the first company in Tunisia, STEG (water, electricity and gas) is only 86th in Africa.
