Displaying items by tag: Sales

India: Reliance Cement Company has announced that it will start to sell cement online. Atul Desai, Chief Marketing Officer of the company, said, "With this move, Reliance Cement has become one of the first e-commerce cement companies in India. In line with our consistent efforts to provide superior product and services to our customers, e-retailing is the latest next-generation customer friendly initiative."

The 'e-retailing' facility is available for a minimum order of 25 bags that will be delivered to the customer within 48 hours. Desai said that Reliance Cement has emerged as a premium brand in major cities of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Initially, the 'e-retailing' facility will be available in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Ecuador: Cement sales fell by 7.04% to 3.38Mt between January and July 2015 compared to 3.64Mt in the same period in 2014, according to data from the Ecuadorian Institute of Cement and Concrete (INECYC). Sales are expected to drop between 10% and 15% in 2015 compared to 2014 when sales of 6.47Mt were recorded.

Consumption is high in Guayas, Azuay, Manabí and Pichincha, according to El Telegrafo. Holcim holds 60.5% of the local market, followed by Unacem (formerly Lafarge) with 22.5% and Union Cementera Nacional (UCEM) with 17%. Recent developments include a US$400m modernisation project at Holcim's Guayaquil plant and a US$230m expansion by Cementera Nacional with Cementos Yura to expand the Riobamba plant.

Europe: Cemex has signed an agreement for the sale of its operations in Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.

Its assets in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia will be sold to Duna-Dráva Cement (HeidelbergCement) for approximately Euro231m. The assets mainly consist of three cement plants (approximately 1.66Mt of cement sold in 2014), two aggregate quarries (approximately 0.16Mt of aggregates sold in 2014) and seven ready-mix plants (approximately 0.25Mm³ of ready mix sold in 2014). Cemex's operations in Croatia, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia had net sales of approximately Euro124m in 2014.

Its assets in Austria and Hungary will be sold to Rohrdorfer Group for approximately Euro160m. The Austrian operations consist of 24 aggregate quarries (approximately 6.47Mt of aggregates sold in 2014) and 34 ready-mix plants (approximately 1.60Mm³ of ready-mix sold in 2014). Cemex's operations in Austria had net sales of approximately Euro217m in 2014. The Hungarian operations being divested consist of five aggregate quarries (approximately 1.36Mt of aggregates sold in 2014) and 34 ready-mix plants (approximately 0.46Mm³ of ready-mix sold in 2014). Cemex's operations in Hungary had net sales of approximately Euro42.2m in 2014.

The proceeds obtained from the transactions will be used mainly for debt reduction and for general corporate purposes. The closing of the transactions is subject to the satisfaction of standard conditions for this type of transaction, which includes authorisation by regulators. Cemex currently expects to finalise the transactions during the fourth quarter of 2015.

Indonesia: Cement sales for the first seven months of 2015 have continued to decrease. Weak demand, in addition to the Eid al-Fitr holiday period, caused national cement sales for July 2015 to fall by 4.2% year-on-year to 31.3Mt.

Regions with the largest cement consumption drop for July 2015 were Bali and Nusa Tenggara, which saw a 26.5% drop to to 214,540t, Kalimantan with a drop of 23.6% to 208,939t, Java with a 13.9% decrease to 1.79Mt and Sumatra with a drop of 3.3% to 726,000t.

Widodo Santoso, chairperson of the Indonesian Cement Association, is optimistic that cement sales and consumption will increase in the second half of 2015 as the government starts actualising its budget to boost the infrastructure sector. Santoso said that the cement industry would gain 11Mt/yr of additional production capacity from the operation of four new plants from Semen Bosowa, Holcim Indonesia, Semen Merah Putih, Semen Jawa and Semen Conch. The additional cement supply and weakening of cement demand may cause oversupply in the cement industry and create higher competition.

Meanwhile, Semen Indonesia has revised its domestic cement sales growth target to 0% from the initial target of 5%, in line with weak demand in the cement market in the first half of 2015. Agung Wiharto, corporate secretary of Semen Indonesia, said that unsupportive macroeconomic conditions, depreciation of the Indonesian Rupiah and the weakening of commodity prices affected the company's sales for the first semester. Its sales volume for the first half of 2015 decreased by 4.2% year-on-year.

"Semen Indonesia's sales volume in several regions was affected by tight competition with new players and new plants," said Wiharto. He added that he expects the domestic cement market to improve in the third quarter of 2015, in line with actual infrastructure developments to boost cement demand in the private and retail sectors. "Cement sales are expected to again grow by 6 - 8% in 2016 if infrastructure developments continue." Semen Indonesia plans to resume several cement plant expansion projects in Rembang and Padang to meet cement demand growth in the future. The plants in Rembang and Padang will each have capacities of 3Mt/yr.

Brazil: Based on Brazil's 2015 GDP forecast, cement production and civil construction in Brazil are expected to remain flat in 2015 for the first time in more than a decade.

GDP rose by 7.53% in 2010, but growth dropped in the following four years to 2.73%, 1.03%, 2.49% and 0.1%, according to BNamericas data. The amount of cement produced has followed the same trend. While in 2010 production was up by 14.2%, it rose by 7.55%, 8.19%, 2% and only 1.5% in the following four years, ending 2014 at 71.2Mt. Finally, civil construction revenue jumped by 33.5% in 2010, but the industry posted increases of 12.6%, 12.9%, 7.60% and 8.48% over the next four years. The last drop in Brazil's civil construction industry occurred in 2002. As GDP estimates are pointing toward a 1.7% contraction for 2015, cement production and civil construction are unlikely to grow in 2015 if they continue to follow Brazil's overall economy.

Tunisia: According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Energy, grey cement production grew by 0.99% year-on-year to 4.75Mt in the first six months of 2015 from 4.7Mt in the first half of 2014. The amount sold locally fell by 6.29% 3.73Mt, compared to 3.98Mt in the first half 2014. Exports increased by 33.8% from 722,248t to 966,095t. In the first half of 2015, white cement production fell by 11.1% to 222,408t from 250,096t in the same period in 2014. Local sales of white cement fell by 6.69% to 96,551t from 103,476 in 2014.

Russia: According to SKRIN Newswire, in the first five months of 2015, Eurocement's Pikalevskiy cement plant shipped 11,700t of bagged cement to its customers, which is 23% more than in the same period of 2014.

Iran: The Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade has announced that in the first three months of 2015, cement production reached 15.8Mt and clinker output was 19.3Mt. In the same period, more than 12.7Mt of cement was distributed inside the country and 4.34Mt of cement was exported.

The Employers Guild Association for the cement industry said that, in the Iranian year 1393 (to 21 March 2015), cement and clinker exports exceeded 18.9Mt, up from 18.8Mt in 1392. Iran produced 66.4Mt of cement in the year and 70Mt of clinker.

Tunisia: According to African Manager, data published by the National Chamber of Cement Producers points to a year-on-year improvement in the position of Carthage Cement in the first four months of 2014.

Carthage Cement's domestic sales have increased by 44% to 349,823t in the first four months of 2015 compared to 242,0315t in 2014, despite the 6.69% decline of total cement sector sales. Carthage Cement's total sales in the first four months of 2015 rose by 36.6% to 420,923t compared to a cement sector decrease of 1.57%.

Indonesia: According to Reuters, Indonesian state-owned cement producer PT Semen Baturaja Tbk has posted cement sales that exceed 600,000t so far in 2015, up by 25% from the same period of 2014. Several projects kicking off in South Sumatra contributed to the sales, which have reached only 38% of 2015's target of 1.75Mt.