A year ago, our sales team was feeling optimistic heading into 2025. Now, looking back, they see that their optimism was warranted.
“We were expecting a good year for our South African customers, and that’s what happened,” said Wayne Driemeyer. That, and more.
“I didn’t foresee how well we would do this year,” said Braam Rust. “Especially not the second half. I don’t think any of us – including our customers – expected such a strong end to the year. Fortunately, Dolphin Bay was able to stay on top of deliveries.”
High demand driven by a buoyant market? That sounds like a good challenge to have – and it enabled the Dolphin Bay team to focus even more on service and delivery. “It was a good year,” said Mark Duckham. “I’ll remember 2025 for how we continued to make inroads and improvements around prompt service. It’s very important that we continue like this into 2026 and beyond.”
Building and shade netting
What’s behind the positivity in the industry? Braam highlighted two factors in the Western and Eastern Cape, regions he oversees. “There’s a lot of building development happening, pushing demand for treated timber,” he said. “And then in the agricultural space, there’s a high demand for shade netting, which also requires treated poles. Shade netting isn’t new, but it sometimes feels like a new market because volumes keep increasing. Farmers are seeing the value of it.”
Wayne, meanwhile, pointed to the fibre internet rollout in peri-urban communities. “There’s a drive to get fibre into underserved areas. Typically, the cables would go underground, but in some areas it’s easier to go above ground, which creates a demand for treated poles.”
Stop-start in Africa
The mood in other African countries we serve wasn’t as upbeat as in South Africa, but remained positive, nonetheless. In these countries, much of our business is influenced by government spending and donor funding. “These projects are not free-flowing and are typically ‘stop/start’,” explained Darren Marillier. “This was our general experience, particularly in East Africa, in 2025.”
Wayne agreed. “Kenya was slower than other countries. The government there has centralised buying to eliminate corruption, which we fully support. The centralised buying removed much of the purchasing power from parastatals, who are the main users of treated poles. A major Kenya Power tender awarded in late 2024 was reversed this year, resulting in lost orders for some of our customers. Many businesses spent 2025 retendering for those contracts.”
Still, he says, the signs in East Africa point to an improved 2026. “We’re looking forward to our export customers hitting their straps and experiencing better consistency next year,” added Darren.
Pro-Treat changes the game
Across the team, the highlight of the year was summed up in one word: Pro-Treat.
“We launched our Pro-Treat Books platform in June/July, and it’s really taken off,” said Wayne. “It’s changed my world! We’re now rolling out updates, which is very exciting. We’ve added some artificial intelligence, and we can now also extrapolate reports on both the treatment and timber sides. This means that we can tell our customers exactly what they’ve treated, size by size and length by length, over any period since they started using Pro-Treat.”
“We knew Pro-Treat would be a game-changer,” said Darren, “but it has outperformed our expectations. We’re looking forward to even bigger and better improvements in the future, as we incorporate more customer feedback.”
‘Our customers’ market are strong, and it’s been a good year for the industry’
Outlook for 2026
The team expects the positive mood in the industry to continue into 2026. “I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t, given the upbeat market,” said Wayne.
A strong market means opportunities for further growth. “Some of our customers are looking to expand their operations,” said Braam. “Their current volumes are not sustainable with the equipment they have, so to ease the pressure on production, they are considering installing a second plant… or a third plant… or a bigger plant! This is true for the smaller players as well as the bigger ones.”
One example of this is MillPres’s establishment of Africa’s first Permacure ACQ treatment plant, which Darren lists as one of his highlights of 2025. “It’s great to have the first ACQ plant up and running, as it gives us experience in new terrain and something to build on moving forward,” he said.
Mark Duckham summed up the Dolphin Bay sales team’s outlook: “The timber industry is in a good space. We’re grateful for our customers’ trust and proud of what we’ve achieved together this year.”
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