Page 24 - CII ARTHA

ARTHA

Corporate India in Q1FY26:

Profitability Rises Amid Soft Sales

and Easing Input Costs

T he Indian corporate sector performance has shown Performance of Non-Financial Companies
mixed trends in the first quarter of the current fiscal
(Q1FY26 henceforth), with net sales growth
moderating but net margins showing consistent (ex Oil & Gas) in Q1FY26
improvement on account of moderating input prices.
11.0 7.0

Overall Performance 8.5 9.6 6.0
9.0 9.0
An analysis of the corporate performance of 3,122 5.0
non-financial companies, excluding those in the oil & gas 8.0 8.0
sector, shows that net sales growth moderated for the 4.0
second consecutive quarter on a year-on-year basis, 7.0
slowing to 3.5 per cent in Q1FY26 as compared to 4.8 per
cent in the previous quarter and 5.6 per cent in the same 3.0
quarter last year. One possible reason behind this could be 5.6 3.9 5.7 4.8 3.5
the softening of inflation, which continued its downward 5.0 2.0
trajectory with CPI moderating to 2.0 per cent in Q1FY26 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1
from 4.0 per cent in the previous quarter. FY 25 FY 26
While corporate performance has lagged in terms of net Net sales growth (y-o-y%) (RHS) PAT margin (%) (LHS)
sales, companies have performed much better in terms of
profitability. Net profits (Profit After Tax (PAT) grew at a Note: Based on the analysis of panel data of 3,122 non-financial
robust rate of 23.9 per cent in year-on-year terms in companies, excluding oil & gas, extracted from CMIE Prowess
Q1FY26, following growth of 17.0 per cent in Q4FY25 and database on 6th October

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