Early Q2 results boost hopes of firm recovery; retailers, banks signal nascent pick-up in consumption

Read throughs, from the results statements trickling in, suggest the economy was certainly getting back on track in the three months to September though all businesses were not back at pre-pandemic levels.

At HDFC Bank, for instance both disbursements and recoveries were better. Again, at Avenue Supermarts standalone revenues were up nearly 50% year-on-year driven up by better footfalls post the second wave; the increases were better even when compared with the same period in 2020. The retailer’s gross profit margins expanded 40 basis points y-o-y while Ebitda margins rose 240 bps y-o-y. IT players, which form a huge proportion of early birds, turned in a good performance.

Infosys posted excellent all-round growth reporting stable margins and an improvement in client metrics. Margins at TCS were steady and analysts believe the company is well-positioned to tackle any headwinds.

It’s early days and rising commodity prices would have hit the operating margins of user companies while boosting the revenues of producers. Auto companies would have suffered due to the shortage of chips as seen in the volume data.

IT players are in a bit of a spot because attrition levels have gone up sharply from the range of 10-20% to 20-30%. At TCS, the attrition rate went up to 11.9% in Q2FY22 from 8.6% in the previous quarter while for Infosys it hit 20.1% from 13.9% in Q1 and for Wipro 20.5%.

To cope with the shortage, they plan to recruit graduates in large numbers; TCS proposes to hire 35,000 fresh graduates in H2FY22 taking the total for the year to 78,000.

TCS has on-boarded some 43,000 graduates in the last six months.

Pravin Rao, chief operating officer of Infosys said the company intends to expand its plan to hire college graduates to 45,000 for the year; the company had earlier proposed to recruit 35,000 graduates.