India Inc reported an uptick in revenue growth in the January-March quarter (Q4) of 2023-24 (FY24), but it came at the cost of a deceleration in earnings growth.
Big, listed FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) companies such as Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestl, and Britannia have been top-performing stocks on the bourses in recent weeks. The Nifty FMCG index, which tracks the share prices of the country's top 15 listed FMCG companies, is up 1.9 per cent month-to-date in May compared to a 2.4 per cent decline in the benchmark Nifty 50 in the period.
As many as 86 per cent of senior business executives have deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance revenue streams or create new ones, said a report by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday. As many as 69 per cent of businesses are more focused on using AI for innovation and increasing revenue than on improving productivity and optimising cost, said the 'TCS AI for Business Study'.
'We're putting a lot of focus on GenAI developers and people who can really do all the architecture and programming.'
India's smartphone shipment grew by 11.5 per cent in the first quarter of calendar year (CY) 2024 on a year-on-year basis to 34 million units. This is the third consecutive quarter of growth in shipments, International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker said.
K Krithivasan, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of TCS, took home a salary of Rs 25.4 crore in 2023-24 (FY24), less than chief operating officer and executive director N Ganapathy Subramaniam. Krithivasan took charge as CEO on June 1, 2023.
The revenue growth of early birds or companies that have declared their Q4FY24 (March quarter) numbers is the highest in the last four quarters. The 178 companies (excluding their listed subsidiaries) that declared their results have reported a sales growth rate of 13.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), taking aggregate revenue to Rs 9.1 trillion. Including other income, growth is at 16 per cent, the highest in the last four quarters.
IT services major LTIMindtree reported a net profit of Rs 1,100 crore for the fourth quarter of financial year 2023-24 (FY24), down 1.2 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) from Rs 1,141 crore in the same quarter last financial year. Revenue grew 2.3 per cent Y-o-Y for the fourth quarter to Rs 8,892.9 crore. Sequentially, revenue was down 1.4 per cent.
As the Indian equity markets scale a new high, the gap between stock prices and the underlying corporate earnings has widened to its highest level in more than 30 years. At its current level, the benchmark BSE Sensex has run up nearly 31 per cent more than the growth in its underlying earnings per share (EPS) in the past 20 years. Most of the divergence between share prices and underlying earnings growth occurred in the past 10 years.
Corporate margins and profits in India remain vulnerable to changes in crude oil prices in the international market. Historical quarterly data from listed companies (excluding banks, finance and insurance, oil and gas, and power sectors) indicate an adverse correlation between corporate margins and crude oil prices.
This is a good opportunity for long-term investors to pick quality small and midcap stocks at reasonable valuations.
With the rush of growth after the pandemic slowing down, many leaders are moving to firms that may be smaller but are growing much faster and have the headroom to grow.
The brokerage earnings estimate for the January-March 2024 quarter (Q4FY24) for Nifty 50 companies hints at a slowdown in corporate profit growth while revenue increase is likely to be in low single digits as in the previous two quarters. According to various brokerage estimates, the companies' combined net profits are expected to grow 3.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in Q4FY24, the slowest in the last five quarters. For comparison, the index companies' combined net profits were up 8.2 per cent Y-o-Y in Q3FY24 and 3.4 per cent Y-o-Y in Q4FY23.
Profits of India's top listed companies have been growing at a faster pace than those of their American peers, but when it comes to revenue growth, the order has reversed recently. The combined net profit of the S&P 500 companies was up 14.1 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) during the trailing 12 months (TTM) ended December 2023, as against 17.4 per cent profit growth logged by the BSE 500 companies in the same period. This is the second consecutive year of faster profit growth for the BSE 500 companies.
Companies now require more than just academic marks; they seek students with internship experience or extra certification courses.
With the last quarter of 2023-24 (FY24) expected to have been soft owing to lower discretionary spend and macro uncertainty, many are hoping FY25 will be a year of recovery for the information-technology (IT) industry. The fourth quarter, January-March, is considered soft, and will continue to see the headwinds the sector has been facing. And the sector has entered the new financial year on a weak footing. Analysts are expecting Tier-I firms to report sequential growth of -1 per cent to 1.5 per cent and midcap players' growth may range between 0.7 per cent and 4 per cent.
The writing has been on the wall for some time. Exodus of senior leadership and growth behind its peers are reasons that have prompted Thierry Delaporte, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Wipro to resign, analysts said. Delaporte, Wipro's seventh CEO, also resigned without completing his five-year term, like his predecessor Abidali Neemuchwala decided to end his tenure prematurely in 2020. Phil Fersht, HFS Research CEO and chief analyst believes the change in leadership was at least six months overdue.
Wipro has once again chosen to bet on an insider who has grown through the ranks to lead the company. Srini Pallia has spent over three-decades at Wipro and it's the only company he has ever worked with. Till now, Pallia was heading the Americas-1 unit.
Oravel Stays, the parent company behind the travel tech brand Oyo, is eyeing to clock Rs 100 crore in Q4FY24 profit after tax (PAT) and a 20 per cent revenue growth for FY24, according to informed sources. These numbers were part of an internal review meeting between founder Ritesh Agarwal and senior management earlier this week, where he spoke about the company's profitability trajectory and growth in business.
Collectively, these companies spent Rs 628 crore (Rs 6.28 billion) on political contributions in the past five years, according to their annual reports.
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