Cost Leadership Strategy and Financial Performance of Listed Consumer Goods Companies in Nigeria

This study explored the consequence of cost leadership on the financial prosperity of listed consumer goods corporate entities in Nigeria, consistent with resource-based view and attribution theories. A quantitative approach was adopted, utilizing a longitudinal research design. Secondary data was drawn from the annual reports of the companies covering a period starting from 2014 to 2023. The population consisted of twenty-one consumer goods firms listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group, out of which nineteen firms were selected using purposive sampling. The data was subjected to statistical analysis using panel least squares (PLS) regression. The findings showed that both capital expenditure and cost efficiency had a positive, and statistical significant effect on the financial performance of the listed consumer goods companies. However, capital intensity presents a negative, and insignificant effect on financial performance. It is concluded that focusing on enhancing capital expenditure and cost efficiency will lead to successful implementation of cost leadership strategy that impound significant improvement on financial performance of the listed sampled companies. Thus, it is recommended that management should strategically realign their investments in capital-intensive technologies to achieve greater operational efficiency, which could lead to higher returns on equity.