Some slowdown in growth was inevitable and it has set in even before the pandemic had hit. Do not worry, we will get our mojo back. The business has been hit, but there is recovery happening as well. HDFC Bank has been making continuous changes to its technology and strengthening its presence in the rural segment too. The bank is well positioned in semi-urban and rural centres, where 60 percent of the country’s population is. I expect 30 percent of the bank’s business to come from digital services and 30-35 percent from rural and semi-urban India.

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Aditya Puri, outgoing MD & CEO, HDFC Bank

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Our loan disbursements during August-September 2020 are almost at 90 percent of the same period last year. So we think that demand has picked up and this festival season it will reach pre-COVID levels. Home loan demand is better in tier-II and tier-III cities. Metro cities are still seeing lower demand for high ticket sized loans.

HT Solanki, Head-Mortgages & Other Retail Assets, Bank of Baroda

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As the market demand improves, we should be doing at least 30 percent more than what we have done in last quarter. So, 25,000-27,000 tonne in Q3 and Q4. We should be at 60 percent capacity utilisation by Q4. We are confident about maintaining the FY22 margin guidance of 22-24 percent. The export market is doing extremely well. North America continues to be the dominant market for us. Europe in the quarter gone by, our overall exports, we have done close to 25 percent of our exports to Europe. So, going forward Europe will grow, but US is going to be our market where we will be dominant.

Naresh Jalan, MD, Ramkrishna Forgings

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Last 30-45 days in the residential market has been surprisingly quite good. There has been significant revival of sales numbers. I truly believe the worst is behind at least in the residential market. There are 4-5 key reasons why this is happening - the biggest is the lower prices which developers are offering, today 5-15 percent discounts are offered across the spectrum. Interest rates are at 15 year low and also Maharashtra government did a fantastic thing by reducing stamp duties that has helped the Mumbai and the Pune market.

Ramesh Nair, CEO and Country Head, JLL India

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In the first 20 days of the October both petrol and diesel demand is more than what it was in the first 20 days of October 2019. Petrol demand has already picked up, but the pickup in diesel demand is a very good sign. It is also contributed by festive season at the end of the monsoon season. The general demand of the products are picking up, aviation is yet to pick up because still all the flights are not on and the international flights are yet to take place. Overall product demand is positive as far as petrol and diesel are concerned in the month of October.

MK Surana, CMD, HPCL

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There is a systemic fault in India and what is a systemic fault. I think the fact is that over the last decade or so we have demonized the promoter; we have created an environment where promoter has become a bad word. The credit culture based on personal guarantee needs rectification. Business entity should be able to raise debt on its own.

Cyril Shroff of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas

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Though subscriber addition wise Bharti Airtel is doing well, till we see ARPU growth, there is going to be a bit of an underperformance. From one-two year kind of a perspective, one can look at buying into it. I have short-term positive view on names like Godrej Properties, Oberoi Realty. Looking at the positive data points and the fact that new investors are coming into it, you could see decent amount of upside in the top two-three names from short-term tactical perspective.

Hemang Jani, Group Senior Vice President, Motilal Oswal Financial Services

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The economy unlocking process has definitely helped construction activities to be in momentum and many of the large projects are getting into execution. The cost of the interest coming down is helping many of the companies in improving the margins. Players like Ramco Cement are relatively stronger, pan-India presence of companies like UltraTech Cement – would stand a good chance. ACC and Ambuja combined also stand a good chance. Larger the capacity, better would be the opportunity, the demand growth is definitely giving a positive direction as far as business is concerned.

Deven Choksey of KRChoksey

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Customs clearance delays at Indian ports have increased to almost a month now. Industry sources blame poor roll out of the faceless assessment system and lack of quick resolution by authorities for the crisis. Some products are in short supply because of the delay in customs clearance. In the first four days of festive sales, we saw great growth but whether these are sustainable or not is a question because of shortages. Air purifiers and steam inhalers, were seeing 50 percent growth year-on-year while microwave sales were getting impacted due to custom delays.

Ritesh Ghosal, CMO, Croma

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The palm oil which is consumed mainly in hotels, restaurant, catering and all is still suffering to some extent. But soybean oil and mustard oil which are consumed more in the house are having great demand in this corona times. If you compare with the last year, the prices are up by 15-20 percent in everything and in lockdown time people thought prices will be sideways, or nothing much in action, but the weather has changed everything world over and in India and prices are trading at very high level.”

Sandeep Bajoria, CEO of Sunvin Group

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Growth has come in this quarter (Q2) from the Vietnam facility. In India, unfortunately because the shutdown was extended a little bit, we were not able to grow further within India. But now that our plants are fully up and running, we are expecting a further improvement going forward. We are sticking to the 10 percent volume growth guidance for FY21. Pricing wise there is not much of a change. Because we had better utilization in Vietnam and we have a tax holiday over there, the PAT has improved further.

Challa Srishant, MD of CCL Products

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A lot of times there has to be something drastic that happens and changes the way businesses operate and that event basically cuts short the time period which is required for the change to happen. COVID in India is possibly one such moment. Brand loyalty in India is at an all-time low and brand awareness is at an all-time high. This is a great case for disruption to happen. So, unlike in the past, now new-age brands, both on the physical side as also on the D2C side, have an ability to take 2-10 percent market share which possibly they would have taken over a 5-7 year period if they survived, to now possibly taking that sort of market share in a 3 year period.

Nikhil Vora, Founder & CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Oct 21, 2020 6:36 PM IST