In 2025, the domestic cement industry ushered in the "cold winter" of deep adjustment, the core operating indicators showed a pressure situation, the imbalance between supply and demand continued to intensify, and the industry was in distress. According to the
National Bureau of Statistics, domestic cement production fell below 1.7 billion tons in 2025, a 16-year low, down 6.9% year-on-year. The utilization rate of clinker production capacity has dropped to 48%, and more than half of the production capacity is idle. The continued weakness of the
demand side is the core factor of the industry downturn.
In 2025, the national investment in fixed assets (excluding farmers) decreased by 3.8% year-on-year, of which the investment in infrastructure (excluding electricity) decreased by 2.2% year-on-year, the investment in real estate development decreased by 17.2% year-on-year, and the new housing construction area decreased by 20.4%. As the core area of cement demand, the deep adjustment of real estate directly led to the sharp contraction of residential cement consumption, while the fatigue of infrastructure investment failed to effectively hedge this gap, which eventually led to a 6.9% decline in overall market demand and further deterioration of the imbalance between supply and demand. Weak
demand is directly transmitted to the price side, and the national cement price shows a trend of "high before and low after, bottom shock downward", and has created the worst "market peak season" in many years. According to the data of
China Cement Network, the national cement price index of China Cement Network fell from 388.71 at the beginning of the year to 303.34 at the end of the year, down 85.37 points. At the end of the year, the average price of cement in China dropped by about 85 yuan/ton compared with the high point at the beginning of the year. Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other traditional hot markets are the most obvious impact, these former "price highlands" have become "price depressions", and the ex-factory price of cement once fell below 200 yuan/ton, entering the "1" range. The continued downturn in
prices has led to "involution" vicious competition among enterprises, with prices falling below the cost line in some areas, the profitability of the industry under great pressure, and the business difficulties of enterprises intensified, showing a grim situation of "weak price reduction and pressure on efficiency".
Looking forward to 2026, as the first year of the "15th Five-Year Plan", the cement industry will enter the key adjustment period of the stock game. The multiple variables of the supply side and the demand side are intertwined, and the industry structure will be deeply reshaped. However, the predicament has not been fundamentally alleviated, and may even be further aggravated. The "law of the jungle" may become the normal competition in the industry. From
the supply side, in 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other six departments issued the Work Program for Steady Growth of Building Materials Industry (2025-2026), which listed the management and control of cement production capacity as the core measure, and clearly required enterprises to accurately unify the record capacity with the actual capacity. In 2026, the compliance supplement of clinker production capacity in the industry will continue to advance and become the core driving force to reshape the market supply pattern. Previously, the widespread phenomenon of overproduction in the industry (the actual production capacity of some enterprises is 20% -40% higher than registered production capacity) will be strictly rectified, and the total clinker production capacity will further shrink in 2026.
At the same time, the capacity replacement policy will further intensify the differentiation of enterprises: leading enterprises will expand compliance capacity through internal capacity replacement, mergers and acquisitions, eliminate inefficient capacity, and consolidate market advantages; Small and medium-sized enterprises are trapped in financial pressure, high replacement costs and other issues, the willingness to replace is low, some enterprises will take the initiative to withdraw from the market, industry concentration is expected to continue to improve. However, it should be noted that even if the capacity compliance work is fully completed, the degree of overcapacity in the industry is still extremely serious due to the continued decline in demand. From the
demand side, the downward pressure will continue, and the characteristics of total contraction and structural differentiation will be more obvious. The industry expects that the national cement demand in 2026 will fall by 5% year-on-year, from 1.69 billion tons in 2025 to about 1.6 billion tons. Although the decline is narrower than that in 2025, the downward trend of the total volume remains unchanged.
Structurally, the underpinning role of infrastructure will be further strengthened. With the accelerated landing of major projects in the "15th Five-Year Plan", the agency expects that infrastructure investment will continue to be an important means of steady growth under the background of continuous real estate bottoming. It is expected that the growth rate of infrastructure investment will be 4.5% in 2026, which will continue to provide support for cement demand. However, the real estate market will still be in the stage of deep adjustment at the bottom, and the consumption of residential cement may further decline due to the high inventory of commercial housing and the continuous decline of new construction area. Affected
by the decline in demand, coupled with the market structure shocks brought about by the rapid promotion of supplementary production in the industry, mutual trust among enterprises has weakened, and the implementation difficulty and effect of peak staggering production will face severe challenges.
In 2026, the cement industry will be in a critical period of stock game, and the trend of demand differentiation and intensified competition will continue to highlight. Only when the whole industry gathers new consensus, strengthens coordination and actively transforms, can it break through the stock game and promote the cement industry to gradually return to a healthy and benign development track.
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