As part of its efforts to beef up position in the Indian market, US-based IT services provider Cognizant today said it will invest about Rs 2,274 crore in the country over the next four years.
India is an important geography for the company as nearly 75% of its over 1 lakh employees are based in the country.
"Cognizant will invest more than $500 million through the end of 2014 to expand our owned campus footprint with the addition of over eight million square feet, which will have the capacity to house over 55,000 employees," Cognizant spokesperson said.
The 8 million sq ft capacity is for our future headcount growth and we will continue to lease additional facility based on business demand, he added.
Cognizant, which competes with Indian IT firms such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro, has spent over $500 million in building its infrastructure in India.
"In 2010, we spent $185 million globally and the bulk of it was for our expansion programme across India," the spokesperson said.
Cognizant will fund the investment through internal accruals. "Cognizant has over $2.2 billion of cash and short-term investments and our business generates good cash. In fact in Q4, 2010, our cash was up approximately $298 million from the end of Q3 2010," he said.
It will also create additional software development and training facilities in regions designated as Special Economic Zones in Chennai, Pune, Coimbatore and Kolkata.
The Nasdaq-listed company today reported 43% jump in net profit to $206.16 million for the fourth quarter ended December 2010 over the same period last year.
For the fourth quarter, revenues grew by 45.2% to $1.31 billion over the same period last year.
"We are pleased with how quickly our business rebounded during 2010, a validation of our strategy of continuing to invest through the downturn," Cognizant President and CEO Francisco D'Souza said.
Cognizant has also given a strong outlook for 2011. It expects revenues to touch at $5.79 billion in 2011, up at least 26% compared to 2010's.
For the year ended December 2010, net profit stood at $733.54 million (up 37.1% from 2010), while revenues were up 40% at $4.59 billion compared to 2009.
"Strong investments in our people, processes and infrastructure have allowed us to provide increasing value to our clients, while generating industry-leading growth," Cognizant CFO and Chief Operating Officer Gordon Coburn said.
Cognizant added 8,300 employees during the said quarter globally taking the total headcount to 1.04 lakh persons.
During the quarter, 77.2% revenue came from clients in North America, while Europe and Asia Pacific, Middle Eastern and Latin American markets contributed 19.2% and 3.6% to the quarter's revenues.
