BERLIN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Revenues of HeidelbergCement increased year-on-year by 9 percent to a total of 9.2 billion euros (10.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2019, Germany largest producer of building materials announced on Tuesday.
Adjusted for currency and consolidation effects, revenues of HeidelbergCement increased by 7 percent while adjusted operational profits grew by 6 percent to 1.45 billion euros.
The increase in revenues and profits would have been due to "solid demand and price increases", according to the producer of building materials such as aggregates, cement and ready-mixed concrete.
"Despite a persistently challenging environment, we increased our revenue and result in the first half of 2019," said Bernd Scheifele, chief executive officer (CEO) of HeidelbergCement, and added that "in general, the market dynamics weakened slightly in the second quarter in comparison with the first quarter".
HeidelbergCement's "strong global positioning" would have been the reason for the improvement of the company's result in the second quarter, according to HeidelbergCement CEO Scheifele.
Good profit margins in Asia as well as western and southern Europe would have "more than compensated" the weather-related weaker business in North America and the Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin Group area, noted Scheifele.
The construction sector in HeidelbergCement's domestic market Germany is booming currently. Turnover of Germany's construction companies increased year-on-year by 11.9 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Order intake of the German construction sector would remain at a "record level" with 12.6 percent more orders for construction companies during the first five months of 2019 when compared to the same period last year, according to Destatis.
HeidelbergCement is expecting that the "favorable development of energy costs in comparison with the previous year as well as the solid development in Europe, North America, and Asia, especially in Indonesia, will contribute positively to the result in 2019".
The producer of building materials confirmed its outlook for the second half of 2019 and is anticipating revenues, operational and net profits to increase "moderately" between 3 and 9 percent.
