The June-quarter (1QFY21) corporate earnings were better than the street's muted expectations despite the quarter being majorly hit by COVID-19 led lockdown.

In an earnings review report by Motilal Oswal, the brokerage noted that 84 companies under its coverage saw upgrades of over 5 percent while 40 witnessed downgrades of over 5 percent for FY21.

It added that its Nifty EPS estimate has been marginally increased by 2.1 percent to Rs 477 for FY21 from Rs 467 earlier and by 2.7 percent to Rs 664 for FY22.

"Financials, telecom, oil & gas, and healthcare should contribute to the incremental growth in Nifty profits in FY21. On the other hand, autos, capital goods, cement, metals, and utilities sectors are expected to drag. Excluding the banking and finance sector, we expect Nifty FY21 profits to remain flat YoY on the back of 13 percent decline in FY20," the brokerage report stated.

Top EPS upgrades for FY21 by the brokerage included Hindalco (49 percent), Asian Paints (41 percent), UltraTech (21 percent), Cipla (19 percent), Tech Mahindra (17 percent), Britannia (16 percent), HCL Tech (14 percent), and Infosys (11 percent).

Meanwhile, top EPS downgrades were Grasim (-10.3 percent), Kotak (-9.7 percent), Titan (-9.2 percent), Gail (-8 pecent), RIL (-8 percent), and ITC (-5 percent).

The brokerage added that for the Nifty50 earnings, sales were impacted by the COVID-led lockdowns, however, corporate India undertook stringent cost control measures to protect their bottom line and arrested the decline in operating profit.

While, healthcare, utilities, private banks, and technology sectors reported profit growth; autos, retail, metals, and telecom posted losses, it added in the report.