Satyam net up 29% at Rs 322 crore

BS 200 SCORECARD

Satyam Computer Services Ltd has announced a 28.57 per cent increase in net profit for the quarter ended September 30 at Rs 322.34 crore (on a standalone basis) as compared with Rs 250.72 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Total services income increased 37.63 per cent to Rs 1,537.71 crore from Rs 1,117.27 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

The global consulting and IT services company has credited the positive performance to accelerated growth in verticals, such as TIMES (telecom, infrastructure, media, entertainment, semiconductor), healthcare and retail, apart from an increase in the contribution of consulting and enterprise business solutions to 40.4 per cent of its revenues.

On a consolidated basis, Satyam registered a 34.74 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 319.81 crore and 38.69 per cent growth in total services income to Rs 1,601.88 crore on a YoY basis. However, net profit decreased by 9.69 per cent sequentially from Rs 354.12 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2006. The basic EPS (on equity share of Rs 2 each) increased to Rs 4.89 from Rs 3.69.

B Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam, said the sequential growth of 11 per cent in revenue from software services has been the highest for the company in the last five years. The annual revenue guidance has therefore been revised upwards and is expected to be in the range of Rs 6,452 crore and Rs 6,476 crore as compared with the earlier forecast of Rs 6,190 crore to Rs 6,290 crore.

Satyam's total revenue (US GAAP) stood at $352 million, up 9.1 per cent sequentially and 31.4 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. Net profit at $65.5 million saw a growth of 26.9 per cent YoY.

Meanwhile, Satyam is also pursuing 25 large deals (guaranteed revenue in excess of $50 million spread over at least three years) of which 12 are in advanced stages of negotiations. The company added 35 new customers in the September quarter. The top-10 customers of the company contributed 33.93 per cent to its revenues.

The chief financial officer of Satyam, Srinivas Vadlamani, said this was the first quarter where the company's subsidiaries added to the EBIDTA margins. Among the subsidiaries, while Nipuna made a net loss of Rs 4.77 crore, Citisoft Plc made a net profit of $0.38 million.

Satyam added 4,025 employees in the quarter, taking its headcount to over 35,000. It plans to add another 3,000 in the next six months. Vadlamani added that due to operational efficiencies, the company was able to reduce the impact of wage inflation to 200 basis points to its margins.

China, Latin America and Europe are on the company's radar for expansion. In China, Satyam plans to increase its headcount to over 1,000 in the next few quarters from about 400 at present. The current attrition rate for the company is about 18 per cent.

Meanwhile, Raju ruled out any apprehensions with regard to a hostile takeover bid for Satyam due to the minority shareholding of the promoters at about 8.5 per cent. He declined to comment on whether the promoters would be keen to increase their shareholding to avoid such an eventuality.