FPJ News Service mumbai

The overall activity in the country’s services sector stood at an 11-month high in July 2025, driven by strong demand, according to the seasonally adjusted HSBC India Services PMI, compiled by S&P Global on Tuesday. Ongoing improvements in demand for the services sector continued to underpin growth of total new orders, international sales and output. The rate of growth was the best seen since August 2024.

“Although the upturn added pressure on firms’ capacity, hiring moderated. July’s increase in employment was the slowest in 15 months, despite strengthening business confidence. Meanwhile, input costs and output charges rose at faster rates than in June. July data, however, pointed to the weakest increase in service sector employment in 15 months. The rate of job creation was only slight, broadly converging to its long-run average. Fewer than 2% of companies took on additional staff, with the vast majority indicating no change from June.

At 60.5 in July, the Business Activity Index–based on a single question asking how the level of business activity compares with the situation the month before –was little-changed from 60.4 in June, and therefore signalled another sharp increase in output. “At 60.5, the services PMI indicated a strong growth momentum, led by a pick-up in new export orders. Future optimism rose but remained below 1H25 levels. On the price front, both input and output prices rose a tad faster than in June but this could change going forward as indicated by the recent CPI and WPI prints,” Pranjul Bhandari, chief India Economist at HSBC, said.