CEMEX Holdings Philippines Inc., one of the country’s top cement manufacturers, said its sales volume may expand by 3 percent this year from last year’s 5.1 million metric tons (MMT), despite lower first-quarter figures.
Paul Vincent Arcenas, the company vice president for communications, marketing and investor relations, said the company expects a rebound in volume sales by the second half of the year, about an 11-percent increase, after the first quarter posted a decline.
“Bear in mind that during the second half last year, there was no more election, spending slowed down so it was a lower base. Unless there are some big typhoons in the second half of this year, I think we can do the 11-percent growth,” Arcenas said.
Cemex said domestic cement-sales volume declined 8.6 percent for the first quarter, resulting to the company’s 24-percent drop in profit to P350 million from last year’s P460 million.
Net sales hit P5.36 billion, down 15 percent from the P6.32 billion reported last year.
“Cement volumes were lower by 9 percent in the first quarter versus the first quarter last year due to adverse weather conditions that persisted from last year into January and February and a high base of comparison marked by strong construction activity prior to the 2016 elections. In the first quarter, Cemex’s prices declined by 7 percent on a year-on-year basis,” the company earlier said.
Arcenas said Cemex is now preparing for the construction of an additional 1.5-MMT capacity in its Solid Cement facility in Antipolo to augment the existing 1.5 MMT.
The company has tapped Chinese firm Sinoma to construct the $220-million facility that will bring Cemex’s total capacity to 6.9 MMT by 2019 from the current 5.4 MMT.
Cemex is betting on the potential cement consumption of the Philippines in the backdrop of the country’s 269 kilogram per-capita monthly consumption, or just half of Vietnam’s consumption and a third of Thailand’s.
The company expects to spend P2.08 billion in capital expenditures for the year, up by more than half from last year’s P1.33 billion. Of the amount, P918 million will go to maintenance spending, P889 million to the Solid Cement plant expansion and P277 million for other strategic spending.