Siam Cement posts 14 percent fall in Q1 profit

摘要

Thailand: Thailand's Siam Cement Group posted a net profit of 249million US dollars (Euro184.6m) for the first quarter of fiscal 2007, down 14 percentfrom Q1 2006 and an increase of 76 percent from the previous quarter. The publicly-listed conglomerate and petrochemicals investor attributed its earnings decline on the year to a general slowdown of the Thai economy, which softened demand for cement and building materials. Siam Cement's overall sales ticked up 2 percent from 2006 to 1.98billion US dollars (Euro1 .47bn), also marking a 4 percent increase from the previous quarter. Sales for Q4 2006 were hardly hit by flooding in many parts of the country. The chemicals business units recorded total sales of 899.75million US dollars (Euro667.05m)for Q1, little changed from Q1 2006 and Q4 2006. The segment's operating profit decreased 32 percent on the year. The cement business units recorded sales of 349.56million US dollars (Euro259.17m), a drop of 2 percent on the year due to a slow down in demand from the residential and government sectors. But sales rose 11 percent from the previous quarter due to recovery from the flooding experienced during Q4 2006. Operating profit slipped 13 percent from Q1 2006 due to a drop in domestic sales volumes.