Cement sales in Brazil increased by 6.5 per cent YoY in May 2025 to 5.736Mt from 5.387Mt, according to the country’s cement association, SNIC. Per business day, total sales improved 4.2 per cent YoY and 3.1 per cent MoM. However, sales in May were impacted by the climate disaster in the southern region, said the association. The weak sales base in the first five months of 2024 also affected the growth rates in the 5M25 and projections for this year point to a more modest performance in the coming months, SNIC added. 

Key factors in the rising sales are the labour market, which is seeing its lowest unemployment rate since 2012, when records started, and the drop in informal labour. In addition, real estate construction continues to increase thanks to the Minha Casa, Minha Vida programme, which represents 53 per cent of all launches in the first quarter of the year. 
While consumer confidence improves, business confidence continues to fall, reaching its lowest level since June 2021. Financing is scarcer and in the 4M24, the volume of savings resources directed by banks to finance construction dropped 48.5 per cent YoY. Other downside risks include high inflation, signs of an economic cooling and budget cuts by the federal government, which increase the levels of uncertainty.

Real estate financing showed a sharp drop of 70.4 per cent in units in the period up to April 2025, already reflecting the increase in the Selic rate. The increase in the basic interest rate increases the competition between financial assets and real estate assets. In other words, investors who would invest resources in real estate start to allocate them to other financial fronts, which is extremely worrying for the construction market and cement sales,” said SNIC President, Paulo Camillo Penna.

The southeast, Brazil’s largest market, saw sales edge up by 2.7 per cent YoY to 2.639Mt from 2.569Mt in May 2024, while in the northeast sales advanced by 7.1 per cent YoY to 1.184Mt from 1.106Mt over the same period. Demand in the south surged 19 per cent YoY to 0.971Mt in May 2025 from 0.816Mt. Growth in the central-west region was robust at five per cent, leading to cement sales of 0.67Mt in May 2025 from 0.638Mt in the year-ago period. A similar market expansion was reported in the north, where sales saw a 5.4 per cent YoY uptick to 0.272Mt from 0.258Mt. 

Exports improved by 75 per cent YoY to 7000t in May 2025 from 4000t.

January-May 2025
In the first five months of 2025 total cement sales in Brazil advanced 4.6 per cent YoY to 26.605Mt from 25.424Mt in the 5M24. 

Sales in the southeast increased 2.7 per cent YoY to 12.149Mt in the 5M25 from 11.831Mt in the January-May 2024 period. Market growth was the strongest in the northeast, at 8.2 per cent YoY as sales climbed from 5.231Mt to 5.66Mt. In the south, sales were up 7.7 per cent YoY to 4.619Mt in the 5M25 from 4.29Mt in the equivalent period of the previous year. The central-west saw sales in the 5M25 pick up by 1.6 per cent to 2.941Mt when compared with the year-ago period, when sales stood at 2.896Mt while the north posted sales of 1.236Mt, up 5.1 per cent YoY from 1.176Mt. 

Export grew by 6.9 per cent in the January-May 2025 period to  31,000t from 29,000t in the first five months of 2024.

Increasing production costs
Looking ahead challenging remain for the Brazilian cement industry. The forecast slowdown in the pace of global activity and an increase in production costs are leading to the sector taking action to reduce risk. To minimise the pressure on the prices of petcoke and support sustainability, the country’s cement sector has been significantly increasing its investments in alternative fuels. In 2023, reflecting the most recent figures available, 3.25Mt of waste were co-processed, the highest recorded to date. This prevented the emission of approximately 3.4Mt of CO2 when compared with traditional fuels.