B G Shirsat: Oil & Gas to fire Q4 numbers

Merrill Lynch

Sales

Profit

Sales

Profit

ACC9.0-3.38.6-25.8 Bajaj Auto29.430.125.311.5 Cipla36.924.214.713.6 HDFC Bank37.831.633.531.3 Hindustan Lever12.054.616.342.7 Infosys Technologies35.538.833.134.1 ITC20.447.317.334.5 Larsen & Toubro28.230.629.728.4 Tata Steel5.4-10.60.9-0.4 TCS44.846.142.948.6  Retail will be the fastest growing sector with 52% sales growth. Infrastructure and telecom are also expected to maintain their growth momentum. IT will continue its momentum, and YoY sales growth will be a high 36%.  Textile sales growth would be lower, pharma sales growth would be over 25%, auto sales growth will be 15-25%, and revenues for banks will go up by 10-15%. FMCG growth will improve to over 15% with volumes picking up and price hikes of some products. Cement sales will also pick up post-monsoon with a growth of 20%. Engineering will continue its strong momentum with 33% YoY jump in revenue.  Oil & gas companies are expected to show profit growth of over 100%, pharma over 50% and infrastructure over 40%. While banks are expected to show 20% increase in profits, the profit growth of cement companies will be a little over 10%. Engineering sector is expected to report 35% jump in profit, IT by over 35%, auto 21% and FMCG over 40%. Non-ferrous metal companies, too, will report higher profits, but steel companies will show a decline in bottomline.  TAKE AWAY - Is there a SLOWDOWN in India Inc earnings? Watch the numbers carefully!