ACC Ltd, India?s second largest cement manufacturer with 26 million tonne of capacity at present, on Thursday said the company is working on increasing its market share and growth this year.
Addressing the company?s 74th AGM in Mumbai, chairman of the company NS Sekhsaria said, ?The company grew 2.3% in the 2009 compared to the industry growth of 10.3%, but, we will make it up in 2010,? he said. ACC Ltd, in which Swiss Cement major Holcim has 46 % stake, follows the calendar year ending December 31.
ACC spent a capex of Rs 1,500 crore in 2009 and has marked a capex of Rs 1,300 crore to be spent in 2010 in expanding company?s total capacity to 30.5 million tonnes by December 2010.
Declining to give specifics on the company?s further expansion post December 2010, Sumit Banerjee, MD of ACC Ltd said, ?I cannot share the plans which are on the drawing board and are yet to be approved by the board.?
ACC Ltd?s shares on Thursday slipped 1.25% to close at Rs 961.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
ACC Ltd?s despatches from 2009 onwards are witnessed to be very low compared to its competitors Aditya Birla Group and its sister concern Ambuja Cement. During March 2010, the Cement production of ACC dipped to 1.94 million tonne and Cement despatches dropped to 1.94 million tonne as compared to cement output of 1.99 million tonne and cement despatches of 2.01 million tonne during March 2009.
?One of the reason of low dispatches is non availability of railway wagon. At least three of our plants have suffered despatches and we had to stop production on these plants because we did not get railway rakes,? said Banerjee.
ACC?s consolidated income in 2009 was Rs 8,724 crore, up by 9% as compared to previous year. Sales volume grew marginally by 2.6% during the year.