Corporates battle headwinds in Q1

non-government non-financial companies.

Highlights

Sales growth Y-o-Y continued to decelerate and reached the post crisis low of 2.6.

Total expenditure growth also declined to 2.2 mainly due to raw material expenses contraction.

Earnings before Interest,Tax,Depreciation amp; Amortisation EBITDA or operating profits grew marginally by 1.1 against near stagnation seen in the previous quarter. However,net profit contracted for the second consecutive quarter.

Sales of the manufacturing sector remained almost stagnant with a growth of only 0.8 during the quarter. EBITDA and net profits contracted and profitability in terms of EBITDA and net profit margins worsened.

Sales growth for the non-IT services sector was lower than that of the previous quarter. EBITDA recorded a meagre growth of 1.3 but net profit contracted. EBITDA and net profit margins recorded some improvement.

Improvement in sales growth was noticed for the IT sector. EBITDA also grew at a higher rate in comparison to the previous quarter,and net profit increased after contraction during the fourth quarter.

Decline in sales growth was spread across most of the industries such as motor vehicles,iron amp; steel,cement,coke amp; refined petroleum products and electrical machinery . Cement,iron amp; steel and construction industries witnessed significant contraction in EBITDA and net profit.