HCL Tech net up 16.3% YoY

Driven by volume growth in the US and Asia-Pacific region, and better pricing, HCL Technologies reported a 16.3 per cent rise in its net income at Rs 332.9 crore for the second quarter ending 31 December, 2007 as compared to Rs 286.2 crore posted in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.

For the same period, its revenues stood at Rs 1,816.6 crore -- up 24 per cent from Rs 1465.1 crore reported last year. On a sequential (quarter-on-quarter) basis, the company recorded a 7.9 per cent growth in net income from Rs 308.4 crore in the trailing quarter. Meanwhile, HCL also reported a 6.3 per cent q-o-q growth in revenues from Rs 1709.2 crore in the previous quarter.

"Our growth this quarter has been driven by our business from Europe and Asia," said Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies. "A 6.6 per cent growth in volumes and 1.7 per cent growth through better realistion like higher billing, also helped us to record a 7.4 per cent rise (in dollar terms) in revenues this year," he added.

The core IT services (core software and infra structure services) of the company rose 29.4 percent to reach Rs 1,598.2 crore during the quarter as against Rs 1,279.2 crore in the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal. While sequentially it grew 7.3 per cent compared to Rs 1,489.5 in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, the outsourcing arm of the company (HCL BPO) raked in revenues amounting to Rs 219.8 crore -- up 17.5 per cent as compared to Rs 185.9 crore in the previous year. On the sequential basis however, the company witness a 0.6 per cent decline in revenues from 218.4 per cent. "The September-December quarter is usually slow, given the loss of working days due to the festive season," explains N Ranjit, President and CEO, HCL, BPO. The company also lost business of a large US telecom company, due to its withdrawal from India.

Among its service Lines, infrastructure services, engineering & R&D services (ERS) and custom application services witnessed accelerated growth. Continuing the trend of the last two quarters, the fastest growth among verticals was recorded in Life Sciences, financial services and telecom.

During the quarter under review, the company added 2312 to its head count to take its employee strength to 48,000.