Capacity increases boost Semen Indonesia's first-quarter sales

Semen Indonesia, the country’s largest cement producer, has reported a double-digit rise in first quarter sales and has increased its market share thanks to new capacity additions.

The company achieved record quarterly sales of 5.95Mt of cement in 1Q13, a rise of 20.4 per cent compared to 4.94Mt in the same period of last year, data from the Indonesian Cement Association (ASI) shows.

The rise was in line with increased sales across the Southeast Asian country, which increased by 8.6 per cent to 1.58Mt in the first quarter, compared with 12.5Mt in the same period of the year before.

"Our high increase was apparently credited to our new plants Tuban IV, which has been fully operated, and Tonasa V that has only operated at about 70 percent of its capacity. Its full operation is scheduled for next February," the company's corporate secretary Agung Wiharto said.

Located in Tuban, East Java, SMGR's Tuban IV contributed about 750,000t to total production while another plant Tonasa V produced around 600,000t, according to Agung.

Given the robust increase in sales volume in the first quarter, the company is expecting that its revenue in the first quarter of the year will rise to 21 percent compared to the same period last year.

Growing production and sales have helped the company increase its market share by four percentage points from 39.5 per cent in 1Q12 to 43.8 per cent in 1Q13.