The Reserve Bank today said the aggregate sales growth of private sector listed companies nearly halved to 4.7 per cent in FY14 from 9.1 per cent in the previous fiscal, with smaller companies being the worst hit ones.
"Aggregate sales growth declined in FY14 caused by decrease in sales growth of manufacturing sector and the services sector," the Reserve Bank said.
The overall sales growth for the 2,854 companies whose data was analysed by RBI slipped to 4.7 per cent in FY14 as against the 9.1 per cent during FY13, it said.
While the bigger companies were able to maintain their growth numbers or at least achieve a growth, the smaller ones suffered badly.
Sales for companies with a sales size of under Rs 25 crore fell by 63 per cent, as against 29.3 per cent fall last year, while the same for companies with turnover between Rs 25-50 crore fell 16.5 per cent in FY14 as against 1 per cent de-growth in FY13.
"While the sales growth of large companies (annualised sales more than Rs 1,000 crore) moderated, sales growth of companies with annualised sales of Rs 500-1,000 crore remained near stagnant and sales of smaller companies continued to contract," the RBI said.
This got reflected on the expenditure front, with the smaller companies preferring to be more frugal.
Companies having sales size of under Rs 25 crore reported a 60 per cent plunge in expenditure during FY14 as against the 25.8 per cent in the previous year, while the same for those in the Rs 25-50 crore was 12.4 per cent versus 0.3 per cent fall last year, the RBI said.
"Overall expenditure growth declined due to a fall in the growth rates of raw material expenses and staff costs," the RBI said.
However, on the net profit front, all the companies suffered at an aggregate level, with a 5.1 per cent decline in FY14 as against the 2 per cent de-growth in the previous fiscal, the apex bank said.
