Strong growth for Infosys

INDIAN software giant Infosys said last Wednesday (13) it expects to grow faster than previously projected after reporting quarterly earnings that beat estimates.

The company reported revenues of `296 billion (£2.85bn) in the three months ending September 30, an increase of 20.5 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. “On a year-onyear basis, our growth was the fastest in 11 years,” chief executive officer and managing director Salil Parekh told a media briefing.

“Given this continued momentum we have further increased our revenue growth guidance to 16.5 to 17.5 per cent.”

Revenues from digital services grew 43 per cent year-on-year, contributing more than 56 per cent of its total revenues, up from 54 per cent in the previous quarter.

At the same time, revenues from the firm’s legacy consulting and technology business grew only 0.7 per cent in the three-month period.

Net profit at India’s second-largest IT company rose to `54.21bn (£523 million), 11.9 per cent higher than the same quarter last year.

The company maintained its operating margins at 23.6 per cent, compared to 23.7 per cent in the previous quarter despite absorbing the impact of wage hikes in the period.

However, Infosys left its forecast for operating margins at 2224 per cent for the current financial year 2021-22. The company signed deals worth $2.15 billion (£1.6bn) in the quarter, down from $2.6 billion in the previous quarter ended June 30.

Infosys will expand its graduate hiring programme to 45,000 recruits this year, even as its attrition rate spiked to 20.1 per cent from 13.9 per cent in the previous quarter.