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.

With infrastructure development in full swing in India, the cement sector stands to gain by the demand for cement in India. Markets have performed well over the past one year with Sensex delivering approximately 2.90 per cent over a one year period and almost 7.50 per cent on YTD basis.

Markets have performed well over the past one year, with the Sensex delivering approximately 2.90 per cent over a one-year period and almost 7.50 per cent on a YTD basis.

Earnings were largely in line; we do not see any structural negatives. The marginally lower´han´expected EBITDA was only because of slightly lower volume and recovery in realisation. The focus on cost efficiencies continues, and opex/tonne was down 8 per cent y-o-y, and 1 per cent q-o-q.

Debt-ridden Jaypee Associates has sold most of its priced cement business to the Aditya Birla group company UltraTech Cement for an upwardly revised sum of Rs 16,189 crore. Here´s what analysts have to say about the deal.

Shree Cement continues to deliver robust volume growth (much ahead of the industry) at 31 per cent y-o-y. Given the robust volume growth, realisation fall of ~5 per cent q-o-q in the March 2016 quarter is reasonable.