IT Sector's Q4 Sales Growth Moderated To 3%

Sales of listed private non-financial companies registered 6.9 per cent growth (y-o-y) in Q4:2023-24

 FinTech BizNews Service

Mumbai, June 14, 2024: The Reserve Bank has released data on the performance of the private corporate sector during the fourth quarter of 2023-24 drawn from abridged quarterly financial results of 2,823 listed non-government non-financial companies. These also include comparable data for Q4:2022-23 and Q3:2023-24 to enable study of sequential (q-o-q) and annual (y-o-y) changes (web-link https://cimsdbie.rbi.org.in/#/dbie/reports/Statistics/Corporate%20Sector/Listed%20Non-Government%20Non-Financial%20Companies).

Highlights

Sales

• Sales of listed private non-financial companies registered 6.9 per cent growth (y-o-y) in Q4:2023-24 as compared to 5.5 per cent growth in the previous quarter (8.0 per cent in Q4:2022-23).
• Aggregate sales growth (y-o-y) of 1,669 listed private manufacturing companies inched up to 6.1 per cent during Q4:2023-24 from 3.7 per cent during the previous quarter; aided by sales acceleration in automobiles, petroleum, electrical machinery and pharmaceuticals industries (Tables 2A and 5A).
• Annual growth in sales of information technology (IT) sector moderated to 3.1 per cent in Q4:2023-24 from 3.2 per cent in the previous quarter and 16.0 per cent a year ago (Table 2A).
• Sales of non-IT services companies remained buoyant and recorded 10.4 per cent growth (y-o-y) during Q4:2023-24 over and above 20.5 per cent growth in the corresponding quarter of the previous year (Tables 2A).

Expenditure

• With the rise in input costs and staff cost outgo, manufacturing companies’ expenses rose by 4.6 per cent (y-o-y) during Q4:2023-24.
• The pace of rise in activities influenced the growth in staff cost, which has been moderating for IT companies but remained healthy for manufacturing and non-IT segments (Table 2A).
• Staff cost to sales ratio remained largely unchanged at 5.3 per cent, 49.4 per cent, and 10.9 per cent for manufacturing, IT and non-IT services companies, respectively, during Q4:2023-24 (Table 2B).

Pricing power

• Operating profit of manufacturing, IT and non-IT services companies rose (y-o-y) by 8.7 per cent, 3.5 per cent and 16.3 per cent, respectively, during Q4:2023-24; their operating profit margin has remained stable and stood at 14.5 per cent, 22.6 per cent and 22.3 per cent, respectively, in Q4:2023-24.

Interest expenses

• Interest coverage ratio (ICR) of manufacturing companies remained relatively stable at 7.5 and has remained above the threshold level of unity for non-IT services companies for the sixth successive quarter to reach 1.7 during Q4:2023-24.