HCL Tech Q3 net profit grows 14.4% to Rs 1,926 crore

The country's fourth-largest IT services firm HCL Technologies today posted a 14.4 percent rise in net profit at Rs 1,926 crore for the March quarter, helped by growth in lifesciences, public services and telecom.

The Noida-based firm, which booked deals worth over USD 2 billion this quarter, saw revenues growing 15.4 percent to Rs 10,698 crore, from Rs 9,267 crore in January-March of 2015.

The company follows the July-June fiscal, but will now move to April-March to comply with changes in the Companies Act, 2013.

However, HCL's net profit went up just 0.3 percent from Rs 1,920 crore in the December 2015 quarter while revenue grew 3.4 percent from Rs 10,341 crore.

Reacting to the results, the stock closed lower by 4.51 percent at Rs 799.95 on BSE.

"Our investments in BEYONDigital, IoT WoRKS and Next-Gen ITO helped us close FY16 year with a robust growth of 11.6 percent YoY in constant currency. This nine-month financial year, we signed 25 transformation deals with more than USD 4 billion of total contract value (TCV)," HCL Technologies President and CEO Anant Gupta told reporters here.

The company has significantly beefed up its strength in new-age services and domain leadership through strategic client acquisitions, he added.

It has announced a dividend of Rs 6 per share.

Gupta said financial services revenues declined 1.3 percent, but those from lifesciences and healthcare grew 6.4 percent, public services 7.1 percent and telecom, media, publishing and entertainment 4.2 percent on a quarterly basis.

"... (there are a) couple of corners of softness in banking... Typically, financial services as a percentage of the total IT spend worldwide is about 30 percent. So, a little shift there makes a big difference," he said.

Gupta added that financial institutions are looking at meeting changing regulatory requirements and making higher usage of technologies like artificial intelligence.

"... As banks look at creating more captives, they will move work from various parts of the globe into... Low-cost centres in phase I, before they start to move out the work specifically to third parties or outsourcers," he added.

Financial services accounted for 25 percent of the company's revenues while lifesciences and healthcare comprised 12.8 percent, followed by public services at 11.1 percent and telecommunications, media, publishing and entertainment at 9.9 percent.

Manufacturing is the largest segment for HCL Technologies, accounting for 31.4 percent of revenues.