Cement sales weaken in May

As the cement sales continued its downward trend in May, major companies like ACC, Ambuja Cement and Ultratech Cement reported a great decline. The main reason for this downward movement was that the demand from the infrastructure and real estate sector weakened.
 
The reason for the downward movement in the implementation of infrastructure projects was due to the Assembly election that took place at five states. This downfall is not regarded as good news for the cement companies as it had forecasted a good demand due to the growth in the number of infrastructure and real estate projects.
 
The cement industry saw an overall price decrease of Rs. 8/- to Rs. 10/- for a 50kg bag; however prices in Maharashtra remained the same at Rs. 290/- per bag as there was a new capacity addition in the region
 
In addition, elections in five States and acute shortage of labour impacted construction activities leading to lower cement demand. However, despite the low trend, ACC’s production jumped to 10 per cent and recorded a 14 per cent increase in sales which was mainly due to lower base in the current year in compare to the last year. The company which lagged behind others in terms of capacity addition has commissioned a capacity of 12,500 tonnes per day at Wadi in Andhra Pradesh and 7,500 tonnes per day at Chanda in Maharashtra during the last one year.

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