Steppe Cement reports drop in year-to-date sales volumes

Steppe Cement announced a sharp rise in third quarter revenue growth on Wednesday despite a drop in sales volumes for the year-to-date.

Versus a year ago, total sales jumped 27% for the three months ending in September to reach KZT 9.31bn.

However, while revenues grew 15% on a nine-month basis to hit KZT 17.89bn, amid an 18% jump in its average price, excluding VAT, for delivered cement to KZT 13,372 per tonne, volumes declined by 3% from a year earlier 1,336,078 tonnes.

That was despite a steady cement market in Kazhakstan over that same time frame, although exports from the country doubled to 0.7m tonnes.

On a cheerier note, for the third quarter alone volumes were up by 12% to 685,745 tonnes, thanks to good clinker output and stock availability.

The Malaysian firm maintained its cement market estimate for Kazhakstan of 9m tonnes for 2017, predicting that it would take a 17% market share.

As of 1040 BST, shares had dropped 8.97% to 15.02p.