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Corporate Results Roundup Q3 2024: Incremental margin-led improvement continues, led by tech and North America

The global Q3 2024 results season for rated nonfinancial corporates is nearly two-thirds complete. Excluding resource companies, global growth is improving incrementally but still reliant on margin improvement rather than revenue uplift. Measured at an annual rate, global revenues for companies rated by S&P Global Ratings that report quarterly are up 0.8% based on current results, and 2.1% if commodity-linked sectors are excluded. The equivalent figures for EBITDA are 1.5% and 5.8%, respectively. Oil companies are exerting the biggest aggregate drag on growth, and technology the most favorable led by the likes of Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Samsung. Interest-rate pressure is continuing to abate. Transcript sentiment analysis shows a widening of the already substantial gap between more optimistic North American companies and their gloomier peers in Asia-Pacific and Europe.

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