CHENNAI: Chennai-based cement major India Cements Ltd., foresees an improvement in capacity utilisations across its plants during the current financial year, driven by a turnaround in demand.
According to the firm’s vice-chairman and managing director N Srinivasan, consumptionhas remained nearly nil in the previous financial year and grew only very meagrely the year before.India Cements posted a 32.10 per cent decline in its standalone net profit to Rs 34.28 crore for the fourth quarter ended March, 2017 against Rs 50.49 crore in the year-earlier period. Total income increased by 16.12 per cent to Rs 1,524.29 crore, and for the 2016-17 financial year, net profit stood at Rs 173.35 crore.
“It is only if demand increases that we can increase our capacity utilisation, which currently stands at 70 per cent,” he said, pointing out that it had gone up from 63 per cent the year before, primarily due to better operational efficiencies, increasing exports and the expansion of the special cement products segment.
Demand in the south of the country grown 7 per cent, according to the firm, “despite a flat growth in the 4th quarter, driven primarily by the increase in the consumption in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.” In fact, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana saw a growth of nearly 20 per cent in demand,while Tamil Nadu remained flat.
Srinivasan added that the company will continue to show strong focus on exports and special cements, though exports were affected by volatile rupee.