India: India Cement Ltd announced its standalone and consolidated annual results for the year ending 31 March 2011 on 30 May 2011.The company registered a decline in its net sales by 7.17% to US$778.9m for the year ended 31 March 2011 from US$839.1m registered in the previous fiscal year. Total expenditure (excluding depreciation) increased by 4.15% and for the 2011 fiscal year it stood at US$682.4m, up from US$6.552m. The rise in expenditure was attributed to increases in power and fuel charges. In line with this company posted a net profit of US$15.15m, down from US$78.83m in the preivous fiscal year, a tremendous decline of nearly 81%.

The cement industry, which recorded impressive double-digit growth in the last four years, entered a phase of decelleration with the demand slackening during the year under review and registered a growth of 'only' 4.7%. An analysis of the demand reveals that while the growth in the west of India was 11.7% followed by the east at 10.3%, the central region at 9.7% and the north at 3.1%, the south registered a contraction of 3.4%. Within the south, Andhra Pradesh registered a significant decline of 17.1% in demand. With substantial increase in the capacity in the southern region, this negative growth had put pressure on cement prices, which reached their lowest level in the past five years during the second quarter of the period under review.

Over all capacity utilisation for the industry fell to 76% and in the south capacity utilisation was at just 66%.