Cement majors, including India Cements and Madras Cements, have been reaping the benefits of higher prices and the highest growth in demand from the southern market in the first four months of 2008-09.
The growth in cement consumption in the southern market has outperformed the country’s demand in the April-July period of the current financial year. The region has registered growth of 12.1 per cent in consumption against the all-India average of 8.2 per cent.
Moreover, the South is the only region that has managed a double-digit consumption growth pattern compared with the northern, western, eastern and central parts of India.
According to a report of Prabhudas Lilladher on the cement sector, “Robust consumption growth in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala on the back of delayed monsoon and increased government-led infrastructure activity have fuelled the region’s overall cement consumption.”
Andhra Pradesh alone saw a rise of 24 per cent in cement consumption during the period at 5.94 million tonnes as against the previous year’s 4.8 million tonnes. Kerala’s consumption grew by around 12 per cent to 2.53 million tonnes compared with 2.26 million tonnes last year.
The northern market performed the worst in cement consumption growth at 4.1 per cent. It was followed by 5.5 per cent growth in the central region, 7.5 per cent in the eastern region and 9 per cent in the western part of the country.
Heavy rains in the north-western part of the country, political turmoil in Rajasthan and Jammu Kashmir and rains in the eastern region deterred growth in those regions.
