No president will say publicly at the semi-annual meeting that "I will continue to fight a price war in the second half of the year".
Just listen to it. It's like when the stock market falls to 2800 points, someone claps his chest and says "it will definitely go up"-a correct nonsense. The price has been hit to the bone, and if we continue to fight, it will not be competition, but suicide. Shouting "no price war" at this time, from the author's point of view, is not so much a goodwill to the industry as a winner's statement, a decent declaration when cleaning up the battlefield. But behind the nonsense, there is often a real signal-just this signal, called "stop falling", not "warmer"; called "grinding bottom", not "rebound". First, the winner's position: the whole industry is under pressure, and Huaxin is the only one to make money . To understand why Li Yeqing has the courage to say this, first look at a group of dazzling comparisons. What happened to the cement industry in the first half of 2026? The cement listed companies that have disclosed their semi-annual reports have lost more than half of their losses, and almost all of them have been wiped out. In terms of revenue, few companies can see that most of them are declining. And Huaxin Cement? The net profit attributable to the parent company was RMB1.713 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 55.5%. The whole industry was bleeding, and Huaxin was making money. It's not luck, it's a structural victory. More detailed domestic data are more telling. In the first half of the year, the total sales volume of Huaxin Cement and commercial clinker was 34.787 million tons, of which the domestic sales volume was about 21.61 million tons, an increase of about 11. However, the domestic cement business revenue was only 4.440 billion yuan, a decrease of 11. Income has fallen. A simple calculation shows that Huaxin's domestic price per ton has dropped from about 260 yuan per ton in the first half of 2025 to about 205 yuan per ton, a drop of more than 20%. What does that mean? It grabbed more volume at a low price, but at the cost of a sharp decline in revenue per ton. So why are profits still up 55%? In the first half of the year, Huaxin's overseas cement sales volume was 13.1752 million tons, with a year-on-year increase of 57.06%; the overseas cement business revenue was 8.542 billion yuan, doubling year-on-year growth, accounting for 65% of the cement business revenue. In the first quarter, the overseas gross profit per ton was close to 300 yuan/ton, while the domestic gross profit per ton was "close to the bottom". On the one hand, overseas tons earn nearly 300 yuan, on the other hand, domestic gross profit per ton may be less than one fifth of overseas. Huaxin's profit growth is essentially subsidizing the price war in the Yangtze River Basin with high gross profits in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Two, why stop now? Since the price war in the first half of the year helped Huaxin grab market share, why did it suddenly "not fight price war" in the second half of the year? In the first half of 2026, the cement industry faced a cruel "scissors gap": the price went down all the way, but the cost went up sharply. Coal prices have risen sharply year-on-year, further squeezing the already meager profit margins. The cost of coal accounts for about 50% of the cost of cement production, and the space for further price reduction is extremely limited when the price is already at a low level. Although Huaxin has strong cost control ability, it is not for charity. In the first half of the year, domestic sales grew by 11.7%, but revenue fell by 11.7 %. In the first half of the year, Conch Cement, a https://price.ccement.com/brandnewslist-1-1000026. known as Tianshan shares are also in a difficult situation, with revenue of 30.16 billion yuan in the first half of the year and net profit loss attributable to parent company 31. Shanshui Cement has a net loss of 726 million yuan in the first half of the year, and the average price of cement is 215.6 yuan/ton. The year-on-year decline was 18. But note that he said "no price war", not "no share". He was followed by the words "protect market share". This sentence is true-I can not reduce the price, but I can not give up the territory I have already grabbed. For cement giants, market share is the bottom line and the lifeline of capacity utilization. Say not to fight, hold the share in hand, this is the real game posture. Three, don't count on V-shaped reversal, only a small rebound Li Yeqing's original words are "follow the price to improve efficiency and maintain market share". Note the wording- "follow the price", not "take the lead in raising the price"; "maintain the share", not "expand the share". This reveals two signals: Huaxin's positioning of the domestic market has changed, overseas is the growth engine, domestic is the basic plate; "price" is not equal to "price increase", just stop falling. But the question is, will the market buy it? Li Yeqing said at the performance meeting that he would not fight a price war, which sounds good for the industry, but do traders and downstream construction parties believe it? You say "price recovery", but there is no incremental story on the demand side; you say "no price war", but there is a serious overcapacity, if you do not fight, will others follow? Huaxin's semi-annual report also said bluntly that the domestic cement industry "may continue to be in a state of pressure and weak prices". At present, the transaction price of cement in the Yangtze River Delta is only 220 yuan/ton, and most enterprises in the industry are losing money. The so-called "compound price" is likely to return from "loss price" to "small profit price", rather than to more than 300 yuan/ton at the beginning of 2025. So, don't have any illusions about the market. In my opinion, from the cost point of view, the bottom of the price may be near this range. But it does not mean that "it is going to rise sharply". The more realistic picture is that the price fluctuates slightly and slowly in this position, and it can't fall, but it can't rise far. Why can't it go far? Without demand pull, any "price recovery" is fragile, and any promise of "no price war" needs to be observed by the whole industry-which is not a unilateral decision of Huaxin. In the final analysis, Huaxin dares to stop the price war at this time. Its strength does not come from the strength of its domestic business, but from the huge profits of its overseas business. In the first half of the year, Huaxin's overseas cement business revenue was 8.542 billion yuan, which has exceeded the domestic 44. The company has continued to expand in emerging markets such as Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Latin America, and its overseas operation and capacity under construction have exceeded 40 million tons. Its production capacity will exceed 50 million tons. This means that Huaxin is not entirely a Chinese cement company, but a multinational building materials group with overseas as its main growth pole. The price war in the domestic market has changed from a "life-and-death war" to a "war of attrition" for it-since it can make a lot of money overseas, why fight to the death at home? Through the "profit pool" of overseas business, Huaxin has gained the strategic space of "defending instead of attacking" in the domestic market. Write at the end: a correct nonsense, a true bottom, a limited bounce back to the metaphor at the beginning. Li Yeqing said that "there will be no price war in the second half of the year", which is really like a "correct nonsense"-no president will publicly say that he will continue to fight. Who wants to fight when the price has fallen like this? When the industry leader publicly announces the cessation of involution, when the expansion of losses forces enterprises to return rationally, and when the rising cost further reduces the space for price reduction-in my opinion, from the cost point of view, the bottom of the price may be near this range. As for whether it can "warm up"? The wording of Huaxin is very cautious: "follow the price" and "maintain the share". It did not say that prices would rise, but only that prices would stop falling; it did not say that prices would expand, but only that prices would be kept. For industry practitioners, don't expect the market to rise sharply in previous years. The more realistic expectation is that the industry will move from "collective loss" to "meager profit survival", and the price will rebound slightly and oscillate repeatedly at the bottom. From an industry observer's point of view, this statement can be interpreted as: Domestic money is too difficult to earn, I go overseas to earn. You fight slowly at home, and I won't accompany you-but I won't give up an inch of the share I've already grabbed.
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