Growth Beyond Volume

The numbers from Q1 FY27 tell two different stories. Volume growth has been robust, with India’s cement industry recording healthy sales growth in the June quarter. Cement movement through Indian Railways has also continued to rise, reflecting sustained demand and growing reliance on rail as an efficient mode for bulk transportation. The demand environment, supported by infrastructure spending, housing construction and regional capacity expansion, has held firm.
Now, here’s the caveat. The margin story is more complicated. Fuel and raw material costs, still elevated by geopolitical disruptions in West Asia, have squeezed profitability across the sector. The pattern is consistent: volume is available, but converting it into profit requires navigating a cost structure that remains under external pressure.
The longer arc of this story, however, points in a different direction. India’s cement demand is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 10 per cent, reaching 660 million tonnes by 2030, with installed capacity expected to touch 800 million tonnes. At that scale, the industry cannot afford to treat logistics and decarbonisation as secondary priorities. They are now central to how costs are managed and how competitiveness is sustained.
That is the context for this September issue. Our cover story on end-to-end logistics examines how modal shift, fleet electrification, AI-driven load matching and digital supply chain integration are reshaping the economics of cement transportation. The industry is already scaling electric truck deployments, while Indian Railways’ revised bulk cement freight rates and the expansion of ULIP are making multimodal logistics not just viable but commercially compelling.
The Indian Cement Review Conference and Cement Expo 2026, scheduled for 15 to 17 December at India Expo Mart, Greater Noida, will bring these conversations into the room. The industry’s future will be built by those who act on them today.