India Inc’s financial performance year-on-year in March quarter will be better than the December quarter and will finally make the dream of a revival come true.

Edelweiss estimates top line and net profit of Nifty companies to grow 3 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, and sees Q4 (January-March) to be a relatively better quarter than last five quarters.

“The earnings improvement is primarily led by sectors which caused deterioration — export companies (IT, pharma, automobiles, etc.) — where adverse currency and demand impacts are now in the base,” it said.

Kotak Securities expects its universe of 111 stocks (excluding banks and non-banking finance companies) to report y-o-y growth of 6.2 per cent and 10.9 in revenues and net profit respectively, followed by improvement in operating profit margin.

Emkay Global Financial Services expects low base in the same quarter last year and 3 per cent rupee depreciation to aid performance.

The brokerage expects sales of its portfolio (excluding financials and oil and gas companies) to grow 6.3 per cent while adjusted profit to remain flat.

In the December quarter, BSE Sensex companies’ revenue grew 1.1 per cent and net profit had declined 4.2 per cent, according to Religare Institutional Research. The same declined 3.5 per cent and 2.1 per cent respectively in the year ago period.

More positives Good performance by sectors such as automobiles, information technology, pharmaceuticals, telecom, cement, will be negated by subdued show by sectors such as fast moving consumer goods, metals, oil and gas, construction and capital goods.

Banking sector, especially the public sector banks, will continue to constrain the overall performance with their asset quality woes while information technology companies will exhibit mixed performance.

Brokerage firm Ambit differs from consensus view on the corporate performance and cautions that India’s gross domestic product growth is unlikely to see an uptick from FY16. Apart from outlook on asset quality of banks, another key focus area would be order intake of construction and capital goods companies, especially those (roads, defence and railways) dependent on the awarding of orders by the government.

“Government spending is up significantly on a y-o-y basis. Private sector capex remains subdued and that will continue to impact the capital goods companies in Q4 and likely in the near future also,” said Kotak Securities in a preview note.

Infosys is going to kickstart the earnings season on Friday. Going ahead, factors such as monsoon and US rate hikes will have significant bearing on certain domestic-led sectors. Ambit is positive for all sectors for FY17 except banking and utilities.

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