HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest software services provider, beat market expectations with a 78 percent rise in consolidated net profit for the fiscal first quarter that ended in September, helped by higher contract wins.
Consolidated net profit rose to Rs 885 crore from Rs 497 crore a year ago. Analysts were expecting profit to rise to Rs 800 crore, according to Thomson Reuters data.
HCL Technologies’ customers include Reader’s Digest Association and Finmeccanica, according to a Reuters report.
Reuters
The company’s strong performance comes after Infosys, the country’s second largest software exporter, cited global uncertainties to keep its revenue growth guidance for full year ending March at 5 percent.
On quarter, HCL Technologies’ net profit rose 3.6 percent.
Shares of HCL Technologies rose more than 2 percent to Rs 595, while Infosys was down 0.4 percent at Rs 2,363.
The company has earned foreign exchange gains of Rs 165 crore during the quarter, according to a moneycontrol.com report.
Revenues increased 2.9 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 6,091 crore, slightly lower than moneycontrol estimates of Rs 6150 crore.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) too moved up to Rs 1,351 crore from Rs 1,300.8 crore during the same period. Expectations stood at Rs 1225 crore.
EBITDA margin also rose a higher-than-expected 23 basis points QoQ to 22.2 percent. Analysts had estimated it at 19.9 percent.
“Seventy-eight percent YoY EBIT growth and a 500 bps margin expansion, including wage hikes this quarter, is a result of our focus on operations and delivery excellence”, said Anant Gupta, President & COO, HCL Technologies, in the press release.
Dollar revenues went up by 3.15 percent QoQ to $1,113 million and profit after tax grew by 3.7 percent to $161.78 million in the September quarter.
In comparison, Infosys posted a 2.5 percent growth in dollar revenues in September quarter.
India’s $100 billion-a-year outsourcing industry, which gets nearly 75 percent of its revenue from the United States and Europe, may grow 11-14 percent in the current fiscal year that ends March 2013, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies.
Top-ranked Tata Consultancy Services will report its results on Friday.
With inputs from Rueters
