Sales of listed private non-financial companies rise 8% during Q3:2024-25: RBI data
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest data report on ‘the performance of the private corporate sector during the third quarter (Q3) of 2024-25’ has showed that the listed private non-financial companies logged 8.0 per cent (y-o-y) sales growth during Q3:2024-25 as compared with 5.4 per cent in the previous quarter and 5.5 per cent in the corresponding quarter a year ago. According to the report, sales growth (y-o-y) of 1,675 listed private manufacturing companies improved to 7.7 per cent during Q3:2024-25 from 3.3 per cent during the previous quarter, mainly driven by higher sales growth in automobiles, chemicals, food products and electrical machinery industries; sales revenue of petroleum, iron and steel, and cement industries, however, contracted on an annual basis.
RBI data report further stated that information technology (IT) companies recorded a rise of 6.8 per cent (y-o-y) in their sales in Q3 from 3.2 per cent a year ago, while Non-IT services companies recorded 11.5 per cent sales growth (y-o-y) during Q3:2024-25 over and above 12.9 per cent growth in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. On the expenditure front, manufacturing companies’ expenses on raw material rose by 6.3 per cent (y-o-y) during Q3:2024-25 in consonance with their sales growth, whereas their staff cost recorded a higher increase of 9.5 per cent; staff cost of IT and non-IT services companies increased by 5.0 per cent and 12.4 per cent, respectively.
Besides, staff cost to sales ratio for manufacturing, IT and non-IT services companies moderated sequentially and stood at 5.7 per cent, 47.9 per cent, and 10.3 per cent, respectively, during Q3:2024-25. Going further, listed non-financial companies’ operating profit margin improved sequentially by 50 basis points to 16.2 per cent during the latest quarter - the improvement was broad based. The report also noted that interest coverage ratio (ICR) of manufacturing companies moderated to 7.6 during Q3:2024-25 (7.9 in the previous quarter); ICR of IT sector remained very high (above 40) whereas that of non-IT services companies exceeded 2 (i.e., earnings before interest and tax being more than double of interest payments) after 32 quarters.
