The Hindu : Infosys surpasses revenue target

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 11, 2002

Business

Business

Infosys surpasses revenue target

By Our Staff Reporter

Narayana Murthy (right), founder of Infosys, speaks to the company's chief executive officer, Nandan Nilekani, at a press conference to announce the company's annual results in Bangalore on April 10. — Photo: Indranil Mukherjee

BANGALORE APRIL 10. Adequate measures to derisk exposure to certain business verticals, new software services and product acquisitions have enabled the software giant, Infosys Technologies, to yet again surpass its earlier revenue projections of a 30 per cent growth for the year ended March 31, 2002.

Income from software development services and products accounted for Rs. 2,603.59 crores, an increase of 37 per cent over Rs.1,900.56 crores posted in the previous year. The net profit was Rs. 807.96 crores, up by 28.4 per cent to Rs. 628.81 crores in the corresponding period in the previous year.

"We have maintained our margins despite a pricing pressure of 4.8 per cent which was offset by the increased demand for offshore services,'' Nandan M. Nilekani, Chief Executive Officer, President and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies, said.

Following the results, the company's board has recommended a final dividend of Rs.12.50 per share.

Results for the fourth quarter-ended March 31, 2002 saw Infy's net profit at Rs. 210.32 crores over Rs.181.67 crores in the corresponding previous period. Income from the software services and products sector stood at Rs. 680.13 crores for against Rs. 561.87 crores in the third quarter.

Some interesting developments which the IT firm underwent during the fourth quarter include the launch of a new subsidiary to cater to Business Process Management (BPM). To aid Infosy's foray into the BPM space, the board has approved a $5 million investment.

"We see lots of opportunities for Indian companies in the BPM space, especially in providing outsourced services such as business intelligence solutions and business processing to U.S. companies given our domain expertise,'' T. V. Mohandas Pai, Chief Financial Officer and Member of the board told The Hindu.

The BPM subsidiary would be formally launched later this year. As part of its IT outsourcing activities, Infosys has taken over the management of applications of two of its clients, and entered into a global outsourcing contract with a leading networking equipment manufacturer. Infosys has also started marketing its systems integration services.

On the human resources front, Infosys has added 126 lateral hires taking the gross addition count to 181, while net addition stood at 75 for the fourth quarter.

With a current utilisation rate of 72.4 per cent this quarter, the company expects to maintain this rate "along with employing the trainees who were deferred earlier.'' However, there are no plans to initiate fresh recruitment drives, according to company officials.

Infosys has derisked its exposure to the telecom sector by shifting the focus from equipment manufacturers to service providers.

This quarter, 15.4 per cent of the revenues were derived from the telecom sector (15.1 per cent in the previous quarter).

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