Rolta India Ltd, the Mumbai-based software and hardware company, posted more than a 36 per cent spurt in sales turnover in the half-year ended June 30, 1999. During the period, the company's net profit also increased by 46 per cent.
Rolta crossed the Rs 100-crore sales turnover mark for the first time in 1997. In 1998, the company further improved its sales by more than Rs 20 crore.
Despite nearly a 28 per cent increase in interest burden and a 39 per cent hike in the depreciation provision, the company managed to improve its net profit owing to a sharp spurt in other income coupled with no provisions for tax. Other income looked up by nearly 32 per cent.
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Rolta was established in 1982. The company, which has identified CAD/CAM as its niche area, has a collaboration with Intergraph Corporation Inc of the US, a company which dominates 90 per cent of the world's CAD/CAM business. This has given Rolta a clear monopoly in the domestic market for CAD/CAM products and also rights for selling Intergraph machines.
Fifty per cent of the company's revenue comes from government and public sector units.
Its private sector clients include Reliance Industries, Tata Chemicals, SPIC and Larsen and Toubro. The defence and forest department are highly dependent on the company's CAD/ CAM/GIS products.
Rolta has entered into mapping and data conversion in a big way for export markets. This involves building sophisticated mapping systems for tele communication, power, gas and government utilities and linking them to intelligent databases on various platforms.
The company has collaborated with ALLTE, a US-based telecom company, to convert telephone exchange records into Unix/Oracle database. This helped Rolta to receive orders from Hong Kong Telecom and the Government of Saudi Arabia.
Rolta received the national export award for outstanding export performance in 1997-98. The company is considered among the world's top five service providers in AM/FM/GIS implementation for telephone, electricity and gas utility companies. Rolta recently launched another utility for the process industry sector and comprehensive technical services for CAD technologies for plant design/plant management. This foray will enable Rolta to diversify into and address a whole sector of industry, while utilising its core competencies.
Due to the improved performance in the first-half of 1999, its annualised earni