Cost pressure

Higher cost can affect margins of listed firms

The performance of listed companies in the January-March 2022 quarter (Q4) suggests that economic recovery continues in an uneven way, but expenses have started mounting in worrying fashion. A sample of 604 companies with minimum revenues of Rs 10 crore have so far declared results. If we remove volatile sectors such as oil and gas, banks, and other financial service providers from this sample, aggregated operational income has grown 18.7 per cent over the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2020-21. In sequential terms, revenues have grown 9 per cent. Profit margins are good. Operating profits have grown 24.5 per cent, year-on-year