India Inc's year of breaking records

India Inc is on a roll. FY 2004 has proved to be a record-breaking year for Corporate India, with the sales of the top 1,000 companies rising over 16 per cent to Rs 9,84,752 crore, while net profits increased by a huge 40 per cent to Rs 72,468 crore.

Excluding the oil companies, these top corporates saw an 18.8 per cent growth in net sales and a staggering 62 per cent improvement in net profits. Profit margins rose by almost 200 basis points.

The story of this excellent performance has been told in this year's BS 1000, with in-depth analyses of the reasons for the steep rise in profits.

Essentially, the growth is a reflection of the restructuring that Indian industry went through in the late nineties and early years of this century, shedding flab and becoming more competitive.

The result has been that when the business cycle turned, and domestic as well as external demand boosted the topline, much of the gains went directly to the bottomline.

Lower interest rates helped not only to reduce costs, but they also increased demand. Commodity prices, too, were a major factor in the turnaround.

Indian Oil remained India's biggest company, while Reliance Industries continued to be the biggest private sector player. However, the top slot for the most profitable company was bagged by ONGC, with Indian Oil and Reliance following closely.

Much of corporate India is not listed. BS 1000 has also ranked the top unlisted companies, with Tata Sons topping the list of private unlisted companies and BSNL at the head of the unlisted public sector units (PSUs).

While the private unlisted companies have been able to improve their performance substantally, the unlisted PSUs have not.