Europe, Americas boost NIIT net 92% to Rs 35 cr

BS 200 SCORECARD

NIIT Technologies posted a net profit of Rs 34.6 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2006, up 92 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

The revenues also surged by 47 per cent to Rs 231.5 crore compared with Rs 157.4 crore during the period under review.

"The company's consolidated net profit nearly doubled to Rs 34.6 crore during the quarter, on the back of robust 47 per cent revenue growth year on year," said Arvind Thakur, chief executive officer, NIIT Technologies.

During the December 2006 quarter, the company bagged orders worth $56 million from five customers from Europe, Asia Pacific and India, leading to a sharp increase in profit.

The orders came from transportation and travel, insurance and retail segments.

The operating profit of Rs 49.1 crore is an improvement of 61 per cent over that in the corresponding quarter last year, he added. Europe accounted for about 50 per cent of the company's total revenues of Rs 231.5 crore, with the Americas and Asia Pacific, including India, making up 33 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively.

While the IT solutions business contributed 94 per cent of the revenues at Rs 217.3 crore, the BPO segment brought in 6 per cent of the revenues at Rs 14.2 crore, Thakur said.

"Our BPO segment has also started making profit this quarter, which was in loss till the last quarter," he said.

NIIT had a staff strength of 4,199 at the end of the December quarter.

"During the quarter, we added 129 people for software solutions, 6 for the corporate division and reduced 85 in the business process outsourcing section. The reduction was mainly due to our strategy to focus in backhand process from voice-based sales process," said NIIT Chairman Rajendra Pawar.

"An 87 per cent growth in financial services and a 50 per cent growth in transportation is a result of the sharp focus on these industry segments," Pawar added.