 "Ashok Soota, executive chairman, Happiest Minds")
For Happiest Minds Technologies, FY25 is poised to be “best year ever” since its stellar listing on the bourses with a 111 per cent premium over its issue price in September 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic.
“We are really excited about the future due to the transformational changes we introduced in FY24 and the acquisitions we have closed in the early days of FY25…in fact, FY25 is poised to be our best-ever year since IPO,” said Ashok Soota, executive chairman, Happiest Minds.
“This year, we are back on track to achieve our long-term vision of $1 billion in revenues by FY31. We required 25.3 per cent CAGR when we announced this goal in September 2021 but now we envision that we will need only a CAGR of 22 per cent to achieve this goal,” Soota said in a post-earnings media call.
Happiest Minds reported a 24.8 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 72 crore on the back of revenues that grew 10.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 417.3 crore for the fourth quarter ended March. In dollar terms, Q4 revenue grew 9.1 per cent Y-o-Y and 1.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) to $50.1 million. For the full fiscal FY24, revenue grew 13.7 per cent to Rs 1,624 crore.
The Bengaluru-based company is betting on both organic and inorganic growth to achieve its goals. It had made two bold acquisitions in early FY25, which the management believes will provide significant impetus to its growth.
Last month, it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Noida-based PureSoftware Technologies for a total purchase consideration of $94.5 million (about Rs 779 crore). With this acquisition, Happiest Minds aims to strengthen its domain capabilities in banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI) and healthcare and life sciences verticals.
ALSO READ: Happiest Minds Tech Q4 result: Profits up 25%, revenue rises by 10.4%
ALSO READ: Happiest Minds Tech Q4 result: Profits up 25%, revenue rises by 10.4%
More From This Section
In addition to augmenting its presence in the US, the UK, and India, Happiest Minds will also get a near-shore presence in Mexico, and offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Africa.
In the same month, it acquired 100 per cent equity interest in Macmillan Learning India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Macmillan Group, USA, for cash consideration of Rs 4.5 crore.
Happiest Minds believes it is in a unique position to capitalise on the opportunities presented by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). It created a separate business unit dedicated to GenAI.
“We have 14 active customers across various industries working on 20 GenAI projects,” Soota said, adding that they are working on various use-cases including contextual chatbots, learning simulators, contract management, sentiment analysis, and content generation etc. “The 70-people team is expected to grow to 250 by the end of this fiscal.”
Soota highlighted the company’s strong and unique capabilities in the bioinformatics vertical, which is not seen among other peers in the industry.
Looking ahead, Happiest Minds expects revenue to grow in the range of 35-40 per cent during FY25 while margins are expected to be in the range of 20-22 per cent, said Venkatraman Narayanan, MD and CFO.
Joseph Anantharaju, executive vice chairman, said, “We have onboarded ten new customers and have built up a good sales pipeline for FY25. This, along with the cross-selling opportunities afforded by our acquisitions, we are well positioned for a rewarding FY25.”
The attrition rate, on a trailing 12-month basis, reduced to 13 per cent from 14.1 per cent in the preceding three months, a trend seen across the industry.
