The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data on finances of foreign direct investment (FDI) firms has showed that select FDI companies’ net sales growth slowed to 8.7 per cent during the 2024-25 fiscal year (FY25) as compared to 9.4 per cent in the previous year. The RBI’s study covered 3,100 non-government non-financial FDI companies based on audited annual accounts reported under Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS) for the three years from 2022-23 to 2024-25.  

The RBI said industry wise, services sector firms posted marginally higher sales growth of 12.7 per cent in FY25 from 12.2 per cent in the previous year, while manufacturing sector growth decelerated to 5.1 per cent in FY25 from 6.8 per cent in the previous year. Companies with direct investment from Singapore, the US and Mauritius accounted for more than half of the sample companies, with Japan, the Netherlands and the UK among other major sources of direct investment into India. Majority of the sample companies belonged to manufacturing and services sectors, within services sector more than one third of companies belong to information and communication industries.

RBI further noted that with moderate growth in sales and rising expenses, operating profit growth eased to 10.7 per cent in FY25 from 22.1 per cent a year earlier. Private limited FDI companies showed higher profit growth than public limited FDI companies. Profit after tax increased by 22.2 per cent during FY25, supported by higher non-operating income and lower interest expenses. Industry-wise, services sector companies outperformed their manufacturing counterparts by recording higher post-tax profit growth of 29.2 per cent compared to 12.6 per cent in manufacturing.