For those who track ACC's results, the recent performance of the company came as a pleasant surprise. The volume increase has come due to long pending expansion of Jamul plant in Chhattisgarh. The numbers, particularly cement realisations, were in line with the estimates.

Due to the recent slowdown in demand and the abundance of supply faced by the cement industry, the capacity addition in the sector is expected to decelerate to 16 million tonne (mt) in the current fiscal year and reduce even further to 13 mt in the next FY.

Historically, the drivers of cement volumes have been infrastructure, construction and real estate activities. Cement volume growth shows a varying correlation with each of these segments.

Ground checks and interactions with various stakeholders in the cement industry suggest that significant potential upsides exist for mid-cap stocks over the medium to long term.

The price increase can be attributed to better demand in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The improvement was observed both in the individual housing sector and government projects.

Out of all the cement companies that have declared their results, Vaibhav Agarwal of PhillipCapital takes a closer look at the numbers declared by market heavyweights ACC Ltd and Dalmia Bharat.

We visited cement manufacturers, channel partners, builders and contractors in north India for an update on the situation and outlook after the government´s demonetisation move.

We visited cement manufacturers, channel partners, builders and contractors in south India in the 2nd week of January 2017 for an update on the current situation and the forward outlook. The feedback from southern India continues to remain very positive, especially the volume commentary.

We attended a two-day conference organised by the INDIAN CEMENT REVIEW in Mumbai to discuss future opportunities and the way ahead. The agenda was to discuss the implications of infrastructure development on cement demand, space for opportunities such as composite cement, and most importantly, how the industry can reduce its carbon footprint.