Winners and losers amid the Covid-19 pandemic

CEOs expect to finish the ongoing March quarter with positive growth as the corporates get back to work in full strength.

Dev Chatterjee reports.

A large number of Indian companies, hit hard by the pandemic, are recovering at a fast pace -- thanks to the rising consumer demand and government expenditure on infrastructure projects.

CEOs expect to finish the ongoing March quarter with positive growth as the corporates get back to work in full strength.

While several sectors like airlines and real estate are still reeling from the pandemic, here's is look at the winners and losers during the period.

Winners

Pharma

The pandemic gave a big boost to the pharmaceuticals and hospitals segments.

Companies reported higher sales as India slowly recovered from the pandemic.

The vaccination drive is expected to benefit those firms that have tied up with MNCs to produce vaccines in India and overseas

E-commerce

While the offline retail stores suffered, the e-commerce sector boomed during the pandemic.

The estimated size of the retail commerce economy in India will be more than $1 trillion in the next 3-4 years.

Of this, the online market size would be roughly $50 billion to $60 billion

Consumer products

After sales fell in the June quarter, consumer products firms pushed products via online channels apart from selling via the traditional channels.

The December quarter results of industry leader HUL?shows 10% growth in health, hygiene, and nutrition business

IT

Indian IT sector saw good growth as staff worked from home during the lockdown.

In 2020, India's IT spending fell 2.7% as chief information officers prioritised spending on technology and services that were deemed 'mission-critical' during the initial stages of the pandemic.

All IT spending segments are forecast to return to growth in 2021

Telecom

The demand for telecom services shot up substantially as an entire nation was locked down in their houses by the government to prevent the spread of virus.

Bharti, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone reported unprecedented spike in data consumption as staff started working from home.

The net based OTTs (over-the-top) companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos were other top gainers.

Losers

Hotels/Airlines

One of the worst hit, the hotels, airlines, and tourism sectors are yet to recover from the COVID-19 shock.

The entire value chain, which spans aviation, tour operators, travel agents, hotels, restaurants, and other service providers in the tourism industry, were impacted with sales falling by as high as half.

Industry leaders expect the sectors to recover only by October-November this year

Real estate

Customers stopped buying properties due to the uncertainty over their own jobs and future outlook.

Sales started picking up in few pockets after the state governments cut taxes to lure customers