Indonesia cement sales rise 8.6%, Jan-Apr 2013

Indonesian cement sales increased by 8.6 per cent in the four months to the end of April 2013, the latest data from the Indonesian Cement Association (ASI) reveals.

Sales for the January-April 2013 period reached 18.12Mt compared to 16.68Mt in the same period of last year. In April 2013 alone, sales also increased by 8.6 per cent to 4.54Mt in April from 4.18Mt in April 2012. The April sales growth showed an improvement on March's rate when sales only advanced by 3.5 per cent – the slowest pace in several months.

The country’s largest cement producer, PT Semen Indonesia, reported sales of 7.91Mt in the first four months of the year, up 19 per cent YoY compared to 6.65Mt in the comparative period of 2013. However, sales in April fell to 1.96Mt from 2.01Mt seen in the previous month.

While PT Semen Indonesia benefitted from increased capacity, the country's second-largest producer, Indocement, saw sales lag behind the national market as it operated at full capacity until new volumes come on-stream. In the first quarter of 2013, the company (part of the HeidelbergCement group)  increased deliveries by just 2.2 per cent as it deliberately gave up market share to boost margins ahead of the additional capacity increases planned for later in 2013 and in 2015, totalling 6.3Mta.

Analysts project total Indonesian cement sales to increase by around 10 per cent this year to arund 61Mt, up from the 54.96Mt in 2012.