The Hindu Business Line : Earnings improve in March quarter

Aggregate total income and aggregate post-tax profit of these companies grew by 21 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. If banks, financial institutions, NBFCs and investment companies are excluded from the list, the growth in income and earnings are higher at 25 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.

Of the total list of companies, as many as 150 companies registered over 100 per cent growth in their post-tax earnings. Three hundred companies saw their post-tax earnings grow by over 10 per cent. Robust growth in earnings was seen in companies operating in banking, information technology, sugar and media. Earnings of automobile manufacturers, cement, pharma and textile companies were a mixed bag. Companies operating in engineering and telecommunication cables, however, remained laggards.

At the operating level, profits grew at about 24 per cent, while the margins edged up marginally by 0.5 percentage points to 19 per cent. Profit before tax however rose by a larger 40 per cent mainly because interest costs declined by 14 per cent and depreciation rose by a meagre 7 per cent. Taxes though rose sharply by 52 per cent bringing down post-tax profit growth to about 36 per cent. More than 100 companies, which are constituents of the BSE 200 index, are yet to announce their results. This includes majors such as ONGC, Tata Steel and Maruti Udyog.

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