India Inc and coronavirus: Haven't seen impact of it on demand as yet, says Bajaj Auto

Rakesh Sharma of Bajaj Auto said, “Specifically, from COVID-19 point of view, I would say that its impact on demand in India as yet has to be still felt. The supply chain at least for us has been improving. The imports from China have resumed, the tier-II, tier-III suppliers in China who supply to our vendours the attendance is steadily rising. Everyday, there could be new linkages emerging and if some new connections emerge between Italy, Germany and China then we will have to watch out for that but at this point of time, the supply chain situation has improved and the demand situation within the country is not yet seeing much of an impact.”

In all this turmoil, rupee has held on reasonably well. When asked whether this stability can continue because of the crude advantage, Ashish Parthasarthy of HDFC Bank replied, “It is difficult to say at this point of time. Things are so much in flux. We definitely have a significant crude advantage and the import bill will come down significantly. However, capital flows are reasonably large. It factored in the value of the currency and depending on the investor sentiment in the short-term, the value of the rupee could be anywhere. We think it will still be rangebound but in very small periods of extreme risk-off, you could see it moving higher otherwise for us, if you see sustainable levels, we have a reasonably good advantage because crude has come down significantly.”

Crude prices declined on account of the oversupply and low demand. talking about its impact on business, Abhijit Roy of Berger Paints said, “Situation was about to get normal before coronavirus spread but it has become a bit uncertain now. So, on the ground it is difficult to say. At this stage, so far it has been okay but the way things are moving, it may slow down a little bit."

"Hopefully, we will tide over this. We are a hot country, so the expectation is that this will not affect us so much. One good thing happened is that the raw material prices have come down, so from that perspective, on the profitability front we will have a kick up.”

Meanwhile, Anand Agarwal of Sterlite Technologies said, “China is about 45-50 percent of the global market and  it is too early to say in terms of the impact or opportunities the shutdown creates but overall we are seeing impacts on this entire trend and shift towards usage of digital tools. We are seeing more and more of our customers getting themselves equipped for that. It is too early to say in terms of a demand/supply scenario, how things will change but we are pretty well equipped to take care of the shifting and changing scenarios.”