Analysts lift bets on India Inc after strong March quarter

ET Intelligence Group: A better than expected growth in corporate profits for the March 2026 quarter has prompted analysts to upgrade the earnings estimates of majority of the NSE 500 companies, according to the data from Bloomberg. For a sample of 335 companies where analysts have predicted earnings in each of the past five quarters, 304 or four out of every five companies reported earnings upgrades at the end of the March 2026 quarter, the highest since the March 2025 quarter when the number of upgrades was 307.

In the previous quarter, 118 companies had received a positive earnings revision. In addition, the quantum of earnings revision was greater for more companies this time around. As many as 241 companies received earnings revision of 10% or more compared with seven a quarter ago and 83 in the previous year’s March quarter.

India Inc delivered a multi-quarter high net profit growth for the March quarter aided by non-operating components. ET had earlier reported that the aggregate profit for 2,956 companies grew by 25.5%, the highest in at least nine quarters. Revenue grew by 10.8%, marking a second consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The upbeat performance has prompted analysts to undertake earnings upgrades.

Banking and finance, capital goods, healthcare and power were among prominent sectors to receive upgrades. Additionally, though the information technology sector (IT) was battered due to rising clout of artificial intelligence driven solutions, each of the 28 sector companies in the sample showed an earnings upgrade after the latest March quarter results. Cheaper valuations compared with historical averages, strong order pipeline, and a depreciating rupee against major currencies that improves sales realisations of exporters have helped analysts raise earnings forecasts.

Among the companies, IndusInd Bank, Eternal (earlier Zomato), and Tata Motors PV reported over five times increase in their one-year forward earnings estimates. On the other hand, analysts reduced estimates for the three state owned oil marketing companies including Indian Oil Corp (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corp (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) by 71-75% citing the impact of West Asian geopolitical crisis on the marketing margins.