Two-thirds of pharma units see recovery, says survey

Two-thirds of pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing units have witnessed improved market conditions since last year, according to the findings of a survey conducted by IndiaMART Research Unit among micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

IndiaMART is a business-to-business online marketplace, with a registered membership of close to one million MSMEs.

About 22.2 per cent of the respondents stated that market conditions have improved beyond expectations, while 61.1 per cent said that there was an average improvement.

About 55.6 per cent of respondents said that their sales had increased by up to 20 per cent, while 33.3 per cent termed the increase in sales higher compared to the previous year. Product prices have also seen improvement during the year.

Over 31.25 per cent of respondents termed the improvement as significant, while an equal percentage described it as marginal. Around 18.8 per cent, however, felt that prices were stable and the same percentage said prices had declined.

Input costs have also gone up. Half of the survey respondents found the increase in input costs significant. Since only 31.25 per cent of the respondents stated that their product prices increased significantly, it indicates that increased input costs could have added pressure on the remainder of the players, as they did not pass on the entire burden of the input cost increases to their customers.