Cement sector looks good, says Amar Ambani

Cement sector is looking good, says Amar Ambani, Head- Research, IIFL.

Ambani told CNBC-TV18, “Cements quarterly results – the street was expecting slightly better performance than what ACC has come with, but overall I don’t think it’s too much of a worry area currently. The market has been quite excited about cement in the last 2 or 3 months especially after month-on-month of the dispatch numbers and the last month was possibly one of the best of the lot with 10-12% kind of dispatch growth.”
He further added, “Looking at this year being at around 6.8% or 7% and the coming year are also is likely to be good. We have seen in semi towns and cities to some extent housing projects picking up. We have seen NHAI release a few 1000 kilometers worth of orders. So cement is looking exciting and the pricing also seems to be there. Our channel check seems to suggest that pricing is likely to stay firm and this is a situation, it is seen across India. It’s not just in a particular section. So of course we believe that North and South will do particularly better than West and the rest of the country, but it is a pan India kind of scenario, which is being seen. So, I don’t think one should get too worried about this particular performance, but overall cement as a sector looks good and rather than directly investing in infrastructure or related plays. One can play this space through the cement sector."