What do corporate results tell us about the economy?
India’s GDP grew by 6.3% in the quarter ending September 30, according to
data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on November 30. Headline
GDP numbers, however, tell us little about the nature of economic growth. While
high-frequency data on the informal sector is not available in India, there exist
databases that can give insight into the state of the formal sector. An HT
analysis of the latest quarterly results from the Centre for Monitoring Indian
Economy’s (CMIE) Prowess database – it is among the largest databases of
corporate performance – does just this. There are 2,176 non-financial companies
in the Prowess database for which September quarter results are available along
with quarterly results for the last five years. Here are five charts that explain how they
are doing. f one were to compare the latest numbers with the same quarter of the
past year, the corporate sector does well in terms of growth. Inflation-adjusted
sales are 21% higher in September this year over the year-ago number. There is
no element of favorable base effect since they had crossed pre-pandemic levels
in September 2021 itself. To be sure, these numbers have to be read with the
caveat that they might change when quarterly results for a larger sample of
companies are available.
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