Blitz India Business
NEW DELHI: India’s combined exports crossed USD 80 billion in a single month for the first time in a July. The composition is more instructive than the total.
India’s combined merchandise and services exports reached USD 80.14 billion in July 2026, against USD 70.72 billion in July 2025 — a rise this desk computes at 13.32 per cent. Merchandise shipments accounted for USD 44.24 billion, up 19.63 per cent and the highest July merchandise figure on the Commerce Ministry’s record. Services were estimated at USD 35.89 billion against USD 33.74 billion, a rise of 6.37 per cent.
The divergence between those two growth rates is the first thing to note. Merchandise grew at roughly three times the pace of services in the month — a reversal of the pattern that has held for most of the past decade, in which services were the dependable engine and goods the volatile one. One month does not make a trend, and July figures carry seasonal effects. But the composition inside the merchandise number is not seasonal.
Goods outpaced services three to one. Merchandise exports grew 19.63 per cent in July 2026 against 6.37 per cent for services — a reversal of the pattern of the past decade, driven by electronics and refined petroleum.
A 57 per cent rise in electronics is a manufacturing story. A 68 per cent rise in petroleum products is a refining-margin story. They should not be read the same way.
At a Glance
• Combined exports: USD 80.14 bn in July 2026, from USD 70.72 bn — up 13.32%
• Merchandise: USD 44.24 bn, up 19.63% — highest-ever July
• Services: USD 35.89 bn, up 6.37%
• Electronic goods: USD 5.92 bn, up 57.4%
• Petroleum products: USD 6.92 bn, up 67.64%
• Engineering goods: USD 12.24 bn, up 17.71%
• Also cited as drivers: chemicals and textiles
Electronic goods rose 57.4 per cent to USD 5.92 billion, and petroleum products 67.64 per cent to USD 6.92 billion. Engineering goods, the largest single basket at USD 12.24 billion, grew a steadier 17.71 per cent. These three baskets behave in fundamentally different ways and an investor should not read them alike. Refined petroleum exports track crack spreads and crude differentials, and can reverse within a quarter when either moves.
Electronics exports track installed assembly capacity, which does not reverse — a plant commissioned under a production-linked incentive scheme continues to ship whether margins are wide or narrow. Engineering goods track global capital expenditure cycles, which turn slowly.
The durable component of July’s number is therefore the electronics line, and it is the one worth tracking month by month. A 57 per cent rise on a base of nearly USD 4 billion is not a statistical artefact of a low denominator; it is capacity that was commissioned two to four years ago now running at scale. That is the intended output of the production-linked incentive architecture, and it is showing up where it was supposed to.
Two disciplines follow for anyone using these figures. First, quote the base with the growth rate: 57.4 per cent of electronics is a different economic event from 17.71 per cent of engineering goods, because the engineering basket is more than twice the size. Second, treat the trade-deficit figures circulating alongside this release with care — the reported numbers vary materially depending on whether they cover merchandise alone or goods and services together, and this desk has not printed a deficit figure because the available sources do not agree on the basis. The exports data, by contrast, reconcile exactly: 44.24 plus 35.89 equals 80.13, against a reported 80.14 — a rounding difference and nothing more.