Healthcare sector healthy despite crisis: Assocham

“When the whole world was reeling under the heat of global slowdown, one sector which remained largely untouched from the slowdown and registered healthy growth during the first quarter of the current fiscal is healthcare industry,” Assocham President Sajjan Jindal said.

India has a comparative cost advantage through which it provides better and cheap healthcare services than most of the other countries, the industry body said.
The study is based on financial performance of 10 healthcare groups including Apollo Hospital, Piramal Healthcare, Cadila and Glaxosmithkline.

The groups registered a growth of 23.94 per cent in total income and 21.37 per cent in total expenditure in the first quarter of 2009-10, against the same period last year, it said.

Apollo Hospital registered 23.36 per cent growth in total income and 53.06 per cent growth in net profit in the quarter compared to the same period last year, while Piramal healthcare registered 16.48 per cent growth in total income and 45.48 per cent in net profit, the study further pointed out.

Cadila and Glaxosmithkline registered 26.54 per cent and 24.15 per cent growth in total income respectively. The net profit of these groups grew by 32.69 per cent and 19.56 per cent respectively.