The first set of December 2017 quarter results by 100-odd companies so far have met market’s expectations of a further recovery in earnings. Adjusted net profit has grown 25.2 per cent year-on-year in the December 2017 quarter — highest in eight quarters — according to data provided by Capitaline. However, this has been helped more by the 22.4 per cent y-o-y jump in other income combined with a decline of 1.5 per cent y-o-y in taxation and lower growth of 8.25 per cent in interest cost (24 per cent y-o-y jump seen in previous quarter).

With support from sectors such as auto ancillaries, consumer durables and cement, topline growth at 13.5 per cent y-o-y (highest in three quarters) has been impressive. But operating profit declined 5 per cent y-o-y — first time in three quarters — thanks to faster increase in raw material costs (up 16 per cent) and other overheads.

Please note that banks and financial services have been excluded for the analysis. Further, only companies of at least ₹100 crore of topline in December 2017 have been considered for the analysis.

Mixed performance

While majority of the companies have reported robust topline growth, a handful of companies (20-odd) have reported decline in net profit. So, net-on-net it has been a mixed performance on an overall basis. RIL has been the single star performer on an overall basis with growth of about 26 per cent each in topline and bottomline while Bharti Airtel has disappointed the most with decline of 13 per cent and 6 per cent in revenues and profit, respectively.

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