October sales down 10% in Brazil

While year-to-date sales of cement in Brazil continue to be high in the period until October 2021, October’s stand-alone result has been seen as the worst of the year, according to the country’s cement association, SNIC.

Total sales volume in October totalled 5.4Mt, down 9.5 per cent when compared to October 2020. However, in the first 10 months of 2021, sales were up 7.5 per cent YoY to 54.6Mt. Of this total, 42,000t was exported in October, up 68 per cent YoY, while in the 10M21 export volumes surged 82.7 per cent to 360,000t from 197,000t in the 10M20. Domestic sales were down 9.8 per cent YoY to 5.339Mt in October 2021 although they advanced 7.2 per cent YoY to 54.216Mt in October 2021.

“The performance of the industry has been showing a downward trajectory since April, when the accumulated result for the year peaked at 20.8 per cent. When analysing the sales of cement per working day, 237,300t in October, the drop is 4.2 per cent compared to the previous month - demonstrating, once again, that the period of greatest growth in the year was behind us,” according to SNIC.

“Despite launches and real estate works remain at a high level, cement sales have been slowing in recent months. The large volume of rain in October also contributed negatively to the month's performance, mainly in the south and southeast regions. The cement industry's concern continues to be related to the high indebtedness - the highest in the historical series started in 2005 - and the drop in Brazilian income, in addition to the well-known bottlenecks and the increase in the prices of industrial commodities such as coke, electricity, freight, sackcloth and refractories,” said SNIC President, Paulo Camillo Penna.