Sales of private manufacturing firms contracted 41.1% in first quarter

Aggregate sales of private sector manufacturing companies recorded a sharp contraction of 41.1 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020-21, reflecting the impact of the pandemic induced lockdown, said an RBI analysis on Tuesday.

The data on the performance of the private corporate sector during the first quarter of 2020-21 has been drawn from abridged quarterly financial results of 2,5361 listed non-government non-financial (NGNF) companies, the RBI said.

"Aggregate sales of 1,619 manufacturing companies recorded a sharp contraction of 41.1 per cent (Y-o-Y) in Q1:2020-21 following 15.6 per cent decline in Q4:2019-20 reflecting the impact of the pandemic induced lockdown," it said.

The contraction was broad-based and varied across industries - only pharmaceutical companies recorded higher sales on both annual and sequential (Q-o-Q) basis.

Non-IT services companies also registered a sharp contraction of 41 per cent in their nominal sales. The contraction was across services except for telecommunication companies, the RBI said.

On the other hand, the sales growth of IT sector companies remained in positive terrain but moderated to 3.2 per cent in the April-June quarter of the fiscal on annual basis.

It further said lower business operations led to decline in the operating profits of manufacturing and non-IT services companies, while operating profits of IT companies, on the other hand, increased 9.4 per cent during the first quarter.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had extended the deadline for submission of financial results for Q1:2020-21 by listed companies to September 15, 2020.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank has also released the results of the 2019-20 round of the Survey of Foreign Liabilities and Assets of the Mutual Fund (MF) Companies.

Foreign liabilities of MF companies declined by 15.7 per cent during 2019-20 and stood at USD 9.6 billion in March 2020, mainly consisting of units issued to non-residents. Their overseas assets were much lower at USD 0.8 billion.

"The UAE, the UK and the USA accounted for 38 per cent of the total MF units held by non-residents," it said and added overseas equity investments of MF companies were largely concentrated in Luxembourg and the USA.

In the case of Asset Management Companies (AMCs), the foreign liabilities stood at USD 4.4 billion in March 2020 as compared to their foreign assets of USD 0.1 billion.

Non-residents in the UK and Japan together held nearly 89 per cent FDI in the AMCs.