Investors should focus on larger cement players as outlook improves

Cement demand should improve with the focus on affordable housing, and strong demand from commercial real estate, and possible pick-up in industrial capex

After some enforced slowdown in offtake during April-May 2024 due to elections, the cement sector is looking at a possible demand rebound which may help it to push up prices.

The April’24 offtake was muted while May’24 saw some improvement with a likely 5-6 per cent rise in demand month-on-month (MoM). In June, some price hikes seem to have been taken, which suggests more sustained improvement in demand.

However, averaged across April-June 2024 (till date), prices in Q1FY25 will be flat with respect to Q4FY24. Raw material costs have however eased off with petcoke prices down.

Earlier attempts to hike