"Sales have grown 19.9 percent higher than the sales in 2010."
Bogor, West Java (ANTARA News) - Cement maker PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk. has recorded the biggest sales in history of 15.4 million tons in 2011.

"Sales have grown 19.9 percent higher than the sales in 2010 which were recorded at 12.8 million tons," company`s corporate secretary Sahat Panggabean said to ANTARA here on Tuesday evening.

The company held an annual shareholders` meeting that evening during which the outline of financial performance report for the fiscal year 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 was presented.

Sahat said the sales increase was driven by strong domestic demand from the housing sector especially for the middle-class segment which is the main driver of housing sector growth.

He said national sales growth was lower recorded at only by 17.7 percent and so the company`s market share in 2011 had grown higher at 31.5 percent than 30.9 percent recorded in 2010.

He said the expansion of ready-mix concrete business with huge investment for building an additional batching plant and procurement of new mixer trucks had contributed to the company`s increasing market share.

He said the company had also reduced exports by 41.5 percent to 0.6 million tons in 2011 from 1.0 million tons in 2010 to meet high domestic demand.

Therefore total sales volume has grown by 15.2 percent to 16.0 million tons from only 13.6 million tons in the year before, he said.

He admitted the rising cost in almost all aspects of operations especially energy cost from coal and fuel oil in 2011 had had an impact on the company`s performance.

However, strong domestic sales, cost efficiency measures and company`s focus on optimizing purchasing and supply chain in all aspects of operations had given a positive impact to the company`s performance in 2011, thereby enabling the company to maintain its good achievement, he said.

To balance the rising cost, he said, the company had increased the domestic price in stages by an average of three percent since the second semester.

He said supported by high domestic sales and rising domestic price the company`s net income rose by 24.7 percent to Rp13,887.9 billion from Rp11,137.8 billion in 2010.

He said gross profit in absolute numbers rose 15.8 percent to Rp6,414.2 billion from Rp5,540.8 billion in 2010.

However the gross profit margin was down to 46.2 percent from 49.7 percent caused by an increasing price set so far that could not offset the rising cost of energy since the last quarter of 2010.

He said the business burden rose by 30.7 percent to Rp1,987.2 billion from Rp1,520.7 billion in the year before due to increasing logistic costs following rising sales volume and sales outside Java.

The rising cost of advertisements and promotion to increase domestic sales was another factor contributing to the rising business burden in 2011.

He said however business profit rose 8.8 percent to Rp4,418.0 billion from Rp4,061.2 billion in the previous year.

The profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) meanwhile also rose 8.5 percent to Rp5,082.3 billion from Rp4,682.7 billion.

The net profit in the current year which could be distributed to the owner also increased by 11.5 percent to Rp3,596.9 billion from Rp3,224.9 billion in the previous year, he said.

Corporate Communication Department Head Aldo Yuliardy said Indocement which is the producer of "Tiga Roda" cement product now has 12 plants, nine in Citeureup, Bogor, West Java, two in Palimanan, Cirebon, West Java and one in Tarjun, Kotabaru, South Kalimantan.

Total installed capacity of the plants is 18.6 million tons a year with total employees by the end of September 2011 at more than 6,200, he said.
(Uu.A035/H-YH/S012)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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