In a year, half of which has been dominated by the downturn in the US economy, Indian information technology (IT) companies have actually posted growth rates which are better than those in the previous three years.
Overall, 91 IT companies, whose annual results are available till date, have reported a rise of 108.4 per cent in net profit at Rs 2,716 crore backed by a strong sales income growth of 57.4 per cent at Rs 11,567 crore.
Analysts said this was expected as Indian IT companies had increased their market penetration and had already built relationships that could not be dented by temporary economic downturns.
The topline growth of 49 companies (whose numbers were available for each of the past four years) has increased from 40.4 per cent in 1998-99 to 41.51 per cent in 1999-2000 and to 43.71 per cent in 2000-2001.
Similarly, net profit growth of this sample of 49 companies increased from 87.58 per cent in 1998-99, to 94.47 per cent in 1999-2000 and to 100.53 per cent in 2000-2001.
Even for the full sample of 91 companies, operating profit margins increased from 27.39 per cent in 1999-2000 to 32.28 per cent in 2000-01, while gross profit margins increased to 31.38 per cent from 25.42 per cent in the previous year. Net profit margins increased from 17.98 per cent in 1999-2000 to 23.87 per cent last year.
Analysts said the impressive improvement in profit margins was simply an indicator of the
