Mohammed Dewji, a businessman from Tanzania and the only known dollar billionaire in East Africa, has announced his plans to conquer the world’s wealthiest conglomerates in Nigeria like Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola.
With grit, the Tanzanian billionaire made the announcement during his interview with CNN’s Connecting Africa, where he noted that his most lucrative product Mo Extra, a carbonated soft drink, sold over a billion bottles in 2022, which in his assessment is enough indication to begin eyeing the market share of some of the world’s foremost soda brands.
“I am setting up factories everywhere where Pepsi and Coca-Cola are, and I am hoping that the 1 billion bottles can reach 3 to 4 billion bottles in the next 24 to 36 months,” he said.
“All that I manufacture from the soaps, and edible oils to soft drinks are things that are needed on a daily basis and that is why I am placed to compete with global brands such as Proctor & Gamble and Unilever. In the colas, I am positioned to compete with giants such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
You are talking of an economy of about $70 billion dollars, now when you are talking of revenue of about $2.5 billion then you cannot be in one business and that is why I am in over 150 different product lines,” he added.
Popularly known as Mo Dewji in East Africa, Mohammed Dewji’s business acumen has led him to establish one of East Africa’s most prominent business empires. With operations in Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique, and Zambia, this African billionaire boasts one of the most extensive and diverse business portfolios in the region, dealing in products that range from sodas to fertilizers to insurance.
Dewji, who runs some of the biggest sisal firms in the world, claimed that Africans now have enough money on hand to buy the goods his companies make.
Mohammed Dewji is the CEO of METL, a Tanzanian company created in the 70s by his father. In eastern, southern, and central Africa, METL produces textiles and mills grains, and produces drinks and edible oils.
According to the most recent Forbes Magazine, Mo Dewji has risen from 15th to 13th place on the Forbes list of Africa’s wealthiest individuals.
Dewji began working formally after graduating from Georgetown University. Despite the fact that it was a family business, he began at the bottom and has since been on an upward trajectory.
