UPDATE 2-Indonesia's Semen Gresik Q4 profit jumps 87 pct

(Adds outlook, details)

By Harry Suhartono and Nury Sybli

JAKARTA, March 24 (Reuters) - Indonesia's largest cement firm, PT Semen Gresik Tbk (SMGR.JK), posted results on Monday indicating a better-than-expected 87 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit, boosted by a building boom and more efficient operations.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy has seen a push by authorities to increase investment on ageing infrastructure and the firm expects the country's domestic cement demand to grow 6-7 percent this year.

"Our sales this year will be largely inline with the overall industry, hopefully we can reach 7 percent sales growth assuming (more) infrastructure projects will kick off and consumer purchasing power increases," President Director Dwi Soetjipto said.

The company is targeting a market share of 46 percent this year, up from 44.3 percent last year.

State-owned Semen Gresik's net profit rose to 503.5 billion rupiah ($54.85 million) rupiah in October-December from 268.7 billion rupiah a year ago, according to Reuters calculations based on its full year earnings released on Monday and nine-month results.

Analysts had predicted a full-year net profit of 1.65 trillion rupiah, implying a fourth quarter net profit of 378.7 billion rupiah.

Gresik's revenue climbed 11.8 percent in the quarter to 2.51 trillion rupiah, as its sales volume for the period climbed 35 percent to 3.9 million tonnes, outpacing a 6.1 percent rise in national consumption.

Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates forecast that the company, which has a market capitalisation of $2.97 billion, will book revenue of 10.8 trillion rupiah ($1.18 billion) in 2008, around 12 percent higher than last year.

In 2007, domestic demand for cement rose 6.6 percent to 34.2 million tonnes, due to infrastructure projects and property developments in urban areas, although Gresik's domestic sales volume for the year rose only by only 1.6 percent.

To meet anticipated higher demand, Gresik had said it plans to construct new factories and its own power plants in an effort to boost its annual capacity by 5 million tonnes, with a total investment of $1.5 billion.

Gresik also said it will try to seek alternative fuel sources to cushion the impact of higher oil prices, including by securing a long-terms coal supply contract for 70 percent of its total consumption.

The company had said it aims to boost its capacity by 40 percent to 22.9 million tonnes by 2013.

With a number of improvement in its operations, the firm's s capacity is currently running at 17.8 million tonnes a year, compared to around 16 million tonnes in 2006.

The firm's shares gained 5.7 percent in the final quarter of 2007, underperforming a 16.4 percent rise in the broader market .JKSE.

On Monday, Gresik's shares were unchanged at 4,600 rupiah, while the overall index dipped 0.6 percent .JKSE. ($1=9,180 rupiah) (Editing by Ed Davies)