ACC plans expansion to retain market share

Domestic cement giant ACC, a part of the Swiss major Holcim, plans to add more capacity after 2010 to retain market share. Sumit Banerjee, managing director, ACC, said, “We will not stick only to 30 million tonnes annual capacity. Beyond the target of 2010, we are working on 2-3 projects. We are studying the feasibility of the projects.” The move is aimed at maintaining its market share as its competitors have announced massive expansion plans. ACC, currently, has a capacity of around 22.4 million tonnes, which will ramped up to 30.4 million tonnes in the next two years. The company has presence in almost all regions of the country with twelve cement manufacturing units. The company is the largest cement maker in the country with a market share of 12.2 per cent. “Our market share has come down over the last several years. We will look at the growth of demand for cement in the country and do whatever is required to maintain the market share,” added Banerjee. The ongoing modernisation and expansion projects of the company are located in Madukkarai, New Wadi, Bargarh and Chanda. It spun off its ready mix concrete (RMC) business into a separate subsidiary — ACC Concrete earlier this year. The RMC unit is adding 15 plants in the current year to take the total number to 41 by the end of this year. In CY08, the company’s cement sales volume was 19.97 million tonnes against 18.83 million tonnes in the previous year, up 6.1 per cent.