After a rather mixed start to the earnings season, investors are clued in to the quarterly results of two giants Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Reliance Industries Ltd to be released later this week.

While the FMCG major will declare its numbers for the quarter ended June 30 on Thursday, RIL will announce them on Friday The scorecards come at a time expectations have been sullied by the disappointing show of HDFC Bank last week.

RIL had topped Street estimates during the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2021, on the back of its oil to chemicals (O2C) and retail businesses. Analysts said Reliance’s 02C business will continue to do well in the last quarter, though its overall performance will be impacted by the retail and telecom businesses .

According to BofA Securities, the O2C business is expected to show a sequential improvement of 6 per cent in EBIT (earning before interest and taxes) inspite of a weakness in domestic demand. The brokerage expects RIL to post a net profit of Rs 13,075.4 crore against Rs 13,227 crore in the preceding three months — a decline of 1.1 per cent.

It expects revenues to come in at Rs 1,66,401 crore, an increase of 7.4 per cent over the January-March period .

Centrum Broking said RIL will report another quarter of strong year-on-year improvement, even as the sequential improvement would be more muted. It expects a consolidated EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) of Rs 23,900 crore a growth of 42 per cent over the year ago period and 2.4 per cent compared with the previous three months and a consolidated profit after tax of Rs 14,700 crore, a sequential increase of 3.2 per cent.

In telecom, brokerages are of the view the sector could report a muted quarter. “The first quarter is likely to be a soft quarter for telcos as the lockdowns that followed the second wave of Covid resulted in lower smartphone shipments and subscriber additions,” IIFL Securities said. Margins will be affected by the benefits extended to low-income users.

IIFL expects Jio to report a flat revenue growth on a sequential basis at Rs 17,494 crore. Net profit is forecast to fall 5.8 per cent sequentially.

In consumer goods, companies are expected to report steady results though they could also feel the impact of rising input costs. HUL is expected to report net profit between Rs 2,200 crore and Rs 2,500 crore with brokerages such as Emkay projecting revenue growth of around 19 per cent at Rs 10,560 crore.