India to see mega residential launches in Q1 2025, focus to shift to mid-income housing: HSBC
The past four years have been dominated by “upgrade” demand, serving developers well to achieve better pricing.
India’s Services Purchasing Managers’ Index softened in April but remained sturdy on robust domestic and foreign demand, lifting business confidence to a three-month high, a recent survey has said.
According to the survey compiled by S&P Global, the HSBC final India Services Purchasing Managers’ Index, fell to 60.8 in April from 61.2 in March, confounding a preliminary estimate for a rise to 61.7.
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Despite the decline in the headline reading, the figure still marked one of the fastest growth rates in just under 14 years.
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Activity in the services sector has been above the 50-mark separating growth from contraction since August 2021.
The report further said that the favourable market conditions and buoyant demand pushed the new business sub-index to a three-month high, the third-highest in around 14 years.
“India’s service activity rose at a slightly softer pace in April, backed by a further rise in new orders, with notable strength in domestic demand,” said Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC.
“Although new export orders remained robust, they showed a slight moderation from March.”
As per the survey, the operating costs increased at a high pace stemming from elevated raw material and labour costs. However, the rate at which firms passed on the burden to clients softened from a near seven-year high in March.
However, growing business optimism failed to create jobs at a significant pace. Hiring was muted although the current sequence of job growth extended to almost two years.
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