Pvt non-financial firms' profit rise by 10% in Jan-Mar

Improvement in sales growth was observed across three major sectors manufacturing, services and IT sectors: RBI

Total profit of private non-financial companies rose by 10.3% year-on-year to Rs 50,900 crore in the January-March quarter of 2013-14, according to the RBI data released today.

The data compiled by RBI is based on financial results of 2,719 listed non-government non-financial companies.

These companies had reported a total profit of Rs 44,100 crore in the last quarter of 2012-13, a fall of 16% over the previous year.

Sales of these companies, however, grew marginally by 4.6% to Rs 7.99 lakh crore in the fourth quarter of FY14.

"Aggregate sales growth improved only marginally in Q4, 2013-14 from that of Q3, 2013-14. Improvement in sales growth was observed across three major sectors manufacturing, services (other than IT) and IT sectors," RBI said in a release.

In the third quarter of FY14, sales grew by 4.4% at Rs 7.54 lakh crore, while in the year ago period sales grew by 4.2% to Rs 7.77 lakh crore.

The operating profits (or Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation/EBITDA) also showed improvement at Rs 1.03 lakh crore, up 4.9% in the last quarter of FY14.

EBITDA was down marginally by 0.1% to Rs 97,900 crore in the same period a year earlier.