HCL Tech January-March net up 14.4% at Rs1,926 crore

HCL Technologies, India's fourth largest IT services firm, has reported a 14.4 per cent increase in net profit at Rs1,926 crore for the quarter ended 31 March 2016 and a 15.4 per cent rise in revenue at Rs10,698 crore for the quarter.

The Noida-based firm, which follows a July-June financial year, had posted a net profit of Rs1,683 crore in the corresponding third quarter last fiscal while revenue for the year-ago quarter stood at Rs9,267 crore, the company stated in a release.

Net income for the quarter ended 31 March was up 0.3 per cent sequentially while third-quarter revenue rose 3.4 per cent sequentially.
 
The company has announced a dividend of Rs6 per share.

In dollar terms, the company's net profit grew 5.5 per cent to $285.1 million while revenue rose 6.5 per cent to $1.58 billion in the third quarter of 2015-16 from the year-ago period.

"Our investments in BEYONDigital, IoT WoRKS and Next Gen ITO helped us close FY16 year with a robust growth of 11.6 per cent LTM YoY in constant currency,'' HCL Technologies president and CEO Anant Gupta said, adding, ''This nine-month financial year, we signed 25 transformation deals with more than $4 billion of TCV."

The company has significantly enhanced strengths in new-age services and domain leadership through strategic client acquisitions, he added.

HCL Tech has acquired Volvo Group's external IT business, besides signing an outsourcing deal.

The company's cash and cash equivalents stood at Rs 729.3 crore at the end of March 31, 2016.

"Healthy cash generation in the last 12 months is reflected in 97 per cent of the net income getting converted to operating cash flow. We have pursued a well-balanced capital allocation strategy through a combination of capital expenditure, dividends and acquisitions," HCL Technologies CFO Anil Chanana said.

Revenue at HCL's infrastructure services business grew 3.9 per cent in constant currency during the quarter, while revenue in the engineering and R&D services business grew 1.9 per cent during the quarter.

Business services revenue fell 4.1 per cent, while application services revenue rose marginally by 0.5 per cent.

Gross margin rose marginally to 34.9 per cent in the third quarter from 34.6 per cent last quarter.

The company added one client of over $100 million and three of over $40 million value.

Employee attrition rate rose to 17.3 per cent compared with 16.7 per cent last quarter. HCL reported gross addition of 9,280 employees in the quarter ended 31 March.

During the quarter, HCL Technologies added 9,280 people (gross) and 1,200 (net), taking the total headcount to 1,04,896 as of 31 March 2016.