With ongoing changes in the domestic and global economy following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be altering the corporate profit league table in India.
SBI Become India’s Most Profitable Company
For instance, consider the case of Reliance Industries (RIL), which has topped the India Inc profit chart for more than a decade now losing the position to State Bank of India (SBI) in the 2023-24 (FY24) April-June quarter (first quarter, or Q1).
In a latest update, being the country’s biggest lender, reported a consolidated net profit (adjusted for exceptional gains and losses) of Rs 66,860 crore during the trailing 12-month (TTM) ended in June this year.
Again, the bank is ahead of RIL’s TTM adjusted net profit of Rs 64,758 crore in the quarter.
Not only that, the public sector lender’s quarterly net profit in Q1FY24 at Rs 18,537 crore again ahead of RIL’s quarterly net profit of Rs 16,011 crore.
Beats Reliance Industries In This Race
This holds a significance as this is only the second occasion in the past two decades that SBI has reported a higher net profit on a TTM basis.
Prior to this, during 2011-12 (FY12) July-September quarter when SBI reported a TTM net profit of Rs 18,810 crore against RIL’s consolidated net profit of Rs 18,588 crore.
Besides SBI, RIL has competed with public sector oil and gas majors such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) for the rank of the country’s most profitable firm historically.
Last time, RIL was last beaten in the profit league table by IndianOil during the TTM ended April-June quarter of 2012-13.
ONGC too was ahead of RIL in the profit league until the October-December quarter of FY12 notably.
If we look closely, RIL lost its position in the league table due to a sharp decline in refining and petrochemicals (petchem) at its oil-to-chemicals business.
This was due to adverse price movement in the global fuel and petchem after the Russia-Ukraine war.
It has affected RIL’s consolidated net profit, it was down 10.6 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 16,011 crore in Q1FY24, its worst showing in 11 quarters.
When it comes to SBI, it has reported another quarter of record-high earnings.
This could be possible with the gains from faster credit growth, rising spread between interest on loans and interest on deposits, and the reversal of past bad loans.
With this, the lender’s net profit was up 153.1 per cent YoY in Q1FY24 on a low base in Q1 of the previous financial year (2022-23).
