Aggregate topline performance was relatively better at 6.8% in the second quarter of fiscal 2018, after a weakfirst quarter. Key commodity-linked sectors such as cement, steel products, aluminum and natural gas registereda healthy 21% on-year growth in revenue and saved the day. Steel and non-ferrous metals led the commoditylinkedsectors’ performance, benefitting from the rise in prices. Further, the pain in consumption sectors relativelysoftened, with all consumption-linked sectors, excluding telecom, registering a growth of 14% on-year.

Telecom continued to see a sharp drop of over 20% in revenue amid pricing pressure. Similarly, export-linkedsectors such as IT and pharma continued to show a subdued growth of close to 3%, although it was better thanthe decline in the last quarter on a year-on-year basis.

The analysis is corroborated from the performance of over 450 companies across 50 sectors (excluding financialservices and oil)