Country's private sector companies saw a dip of 9.9 per cent in profit after tax for the second quarter of this fiscal, compared to 25.6 per cent growth in the year-ago period, RBI data showed.
In the first quarter, there was a contraction in the net profit at -9.5 per cent.
"Among the sectors, services (other than IT) recorded a contraction in net profits," RBI said in the data released today on the performance of non-financial private firms during the second quarter of FY16.
The data is based on the abridged financial results of 2,711 listed non-government non-financial companies.
During the quarter, aggregate sales contracted further primarily due to a sharp contraction of 37.2 per cent in the sales of petroleum products industry group.
Sales in the manufacturing sector also contracted by 7.8 per cent.
The services sectors (other than IT sector) recorded improvement in sales growth (Y-o-Y) in comparison with the previous quarter.
Expenditure contracted at a higher rate than sales at the aggregate level.
Cost of raw materials to sales ratio declined from 56.9 per cent in Q2 of FY15 to 51.6 per cent in Q1 FY16 and further down to 50.8 per cent in Q2 FY16.
At the aggregate level, year-on-year Ebitda growth improved from 3.7 per cent in Q1 FY16 to 8.9 per cent in Q2 FY16. "This improvement was observed across all the sectors," RBI said.
Pricing power as measured by Ebitda margin remained at the level observed in the previous quarter for the aggregate as well as the manufacturing sector.
IT sector recorded an improvement in both Ebitda and net profit margins.
