Cape Town - Bliss Chemicals, the owner of the Maq washing powder brand, had increased its market share by volume from zero to 24 percent in less than five years, ending multinational Unilever's dominance of the category, it said last week.
Shoaib Iqbal, the managing director of Johannesburg-based Bliss Chemicals, which is owned by his family, said this was a Nielsen market research figure for May.
He added that monthly figures were "very volatile", given the shortage of raw materials.
Market research company Nielsen said Maq's average share of the washing powder market in the year to May by rand value was 13.9 percent.
Iqbal said Unilever's dominance of the local laundry market had allowed it to "get away with any prices" it liked.
"Previously people had feared taking on a multinational, but we thought it could be done with the right product at the right price."
He said that initially Maq had been priced 20 percent lower than Omo, but Unilever South Africa responded by dropping its price, narrowing the gap to about 10 percent.
This was in the washing by hand category, which accounted for more than 80 percent of the market.
"We expected retailers to bully us, but in fact they wanted competition, as there was a monopoly it was a blessing to them." Iqbal said the first supermarket to stock the product was Shoprite.
Bliss Chemicals was investing "under R200 million" on a new plant in Wadeville to more than double capacity next year, said Iqbal.