India Inc delivered a disappointing performance in the December quarter of the current financial year with more companies missing average analysts’ estimates.
While Dr Reddy's Laboratories surprised the street, Divi's Laboratories was a huge miss. Other companies that missed consensus as per Bloomberg earnings estimates include JSW steel, SBI life insurance Co, Grasim Industries and Bharti Airtel.
Much like the previous quarters, earnings in the concluding quarter were dominated by banks and financials. However, a good set of numbers from Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki and Britannia Industries give some hope of recovery in rural demand.
While the rising interest rates along with robust growth in lending aided most banks to beat Street estimates during the quarter, expanding deposit base remains a challenge for many lenders as they struggle to meet rising loan demands.
The December quarter also witnessed Tata Motors returning to profit on better-than expected operating performance at its luxury unit, Jaguar Land Rover whereas Mahindra & Mahindra missed street estimates as increased input costs hurt its bottom-line. On the flipside, Tata Steel reported losses in Q3, largely weighed down by a sharp fall in global steel prices and muted demand.
Grasim Industries, which missed its standalone earnings per share (EPS) estimates by 44%, observed that the quarter witnessed ripple effects of global demand slowdown.
“Globally, we are viewing recessionary market conditions because of the prolonged geopolitical issues, Covid induced lockdowns by China added to the challenging situation across the world. While India centric demand was stable, the overall demand was affected by decline in exports led demand across value chain partners,” said Pavan Jain, CFO of Grasim Industries, post the results.
However, the current quarter was not as bad for software companies as most expected. Barring Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), all IT-firms in the Nifty50 pack beat consensus Bloomberg estimates in EPS.
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(Edited by : Pradeep John)
