Nifty India Digital P/E at 27.5 after earnings doubled

The number

Nifty India Digital closed at 8,170.80 on Friday, 9 October 2026, at a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.53. Its price-to-book ratio was 6.06. A year earlier, on 9 October 2025, the P/E was 66.99.

These are NSE's end-of-day figures; the daily series is on the Nifty India Digital valuation page. The dividend yield quoted here is as of 8 October, 1.52%: NSE's 9 October file lifted the yield of 109 of the 145 indices it prices by more than a tenth in one session, so that day's yield is left out.

A history the P/E cannot use

The daily record starts on 14 December 2021, 1,192 sessions, of which 1,100 carry a P/E. (A single reading from July 2016 also sits on the page.) For most of that time the P/E was not a usable number:

A P/E in the thousands means the earnings behind the index were close to zero. On 2 January 2025, dividing the close by the P/E gives about half an index point of earnings against a price of 9,887. With profitable IT companies in the basket, that can only mean losses at some members cancelled most of the profits at others.

That makes the whole-history median of 119.28 meaningless as a yardstick. The last close with a P/E of 100 or more was on 19 May 2025.

• P/E: 11 of 1,100 sessions closed lower, every one of them since 30 June 2026. The low, 26.86, came on 29 September.
• P/B: steadier, and a better guide here. At 6.06 it is lower than on all but 8 of 1,192 daily sessions, all since 28 September 2026. The median is 9.53 and the high, 23.44, came on 2 January 2025.
• Dividend yield: 1.52% as of 8 October, against a median of 1.37%.

The earnings caught up

Earnings are the close divided by the P/E: the profit behind one unit of the index.

Over the year the price fell 11.2% and the P/E fell 58.9%, because the earnings behind the index rose 116.2%. Most of that came in a single session: on 19 May 2026 they jumped 83.1%. Since then the P/E has stayed between 26.86 and 30.05, a median of 28.74 over 100 sessions.

The Nifty India Internet index, which shares the platform companies, showed no change in its earnings that day. So the jump came from elsewhere in the Digital basket, among its IT services and telecom members.

The index is 19.1% below its record close and down 13.3% in 2026, against 13.8% for the Nifty 50. It has risen 12.4% from its 30 March low.

Against the Nifty 50, Nifty IT and Nifty India Internet

Price changes exclude dividends.

Digital's P/E is 1.43 times the Nifty 50's. Its long-run median multiple, 5.45, only shows how distorted the old earnings were. The fairer comparison is the 100 sessions since 19 May, and today's P/E sits near the bottom of that narrow range. It costs about 1.5 times Nifty IT, whose own fall in P/E we covered in our October Nifty IT post.

Nifty India Internet is the pure platform index. Its history starts on 25 February 2025 (399 sessions) and its P/E median is 151.11; 171 sessions closed lower than today's 143.37. Its earnings fell 12.7% over the year, the opposite of Digital's, and its P/E was 7.44 times the Nifty 50's, close to its median of 7.41.

What is in the index

The HDFC Nifty India Digital Index Fund held 50 stocks on 30 September 2026. The five largest were Infosys 7.6%, TCS 7.5%, Bharti Airtel 7.5%, HCLTech 7.5% and Eternal 7.3%. One 97 Communications, Tech Mahindra, Info Edge, Coforge and FSN E-Commerce come next.

The six biggest platform names in the Internet index (Eternal, One 97, Info Edge, FSN E-Commerce, PB Fintech and Swiggy) make up 66.9% of that index but 26.6% of Digital. That is why the two read so differently.

Over the year the HDFC index fund returned −10.76% and the Tata Nifty India Digital ETF Fund of Fund −10.96%. Active funds on the theme spread wider: the Tata Digital India Fund −15.03% and the Motilal Oswal Digital India Fund +2.82%. The sectoral and thematic category page lists the rest.

What this does not tell you

A low P/E here is mostly an earnings event. One session in May reset the ratio. If the earnings behind that jump do not repeat, the trailing P/E rises again a year later without the price moving.

There is no usable long history. Four of the five years on record have P/Es in the hundreds or thousands; the useful comparison is with the last few months, or with P/B.

The basket mixes three businesses. IT services, telecom and internet platforms have different margins and growth, and the mix shifts at each rebalancing.

None of this is a recommendation. How to read an index P/E ratio covers why near-zero earnings produce these numbers, the P/E ratio entry defines the term, and sectoral and thematic funds the risks of a single-theme fund. NSE's index factsheets are at niftyindices.com.