Tata Consultancy Services posted a 24.9 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 3,616 crore, much in line with industry expectations in a traditionally soft fourth quarter.
The country’s largest software exporter posted a net profit of Rs 2,895 crore in the same quarter a year ago. Traditionally, the last quarter of every fiscal is soft with corporates finalising budgets for the next year.
“All the industry segments delivered growth during the quarter, with financial services growing the highest at 5 per cent. Manufacturing and retail grew close to 5 per cent, while telecom registered a marginal growth,” TCS Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director N. Chandrasekaran said.
For the reporting quarter, the Tata group company posted total revenues of Rs 16,430 crore, up 23.9 per cent from the year-ago period. For fiscal 2013, TCS net profit rose 28.8 per cent to Rs 62,989 crore from Rs 48,894 crore in FY12.
The company’s operating margins during the quarter stood at 26.5 per cent and that for the year at 27 per cent. It added 69,728 employees during the year, taking the total to 2.76 lakh personnel. It added 52 new clients during the quarter and 153 for the year.
TCS, which agreed to acquire France-based IT company Alti for €75 million (Rs 534 crore) last week, would continue to look for inorganic growth in Europe, especially in Germany and France.
FY14 OUTLOOK
For TCS, FY14 is set to be better than FY13, with the company expecting to do better than Nasscom’s estimates for the sector of 12-14 per cent.
“The deal pipeline is strong, deal closures are happening. We see traction both in ‘run the business’ kind of spend and discretionary spend. We are pursuing more deals now than we were same time last year,” Chandrasekaran added.
The Mumbai headquartered firm, which had a capex of Rs 2,600 crore in FY13, would have a capex “somewhere in the same region” in this financial year also, TCS Chief Financial Officer Rajesh Gopinathan said.
TCS shares closed down 1.73 per cent at Rs 1,459.20 on BSE on Tuesday.