IT services firm HCL Technologies on Friday reported a 24% year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit to ₹2,387 crore for the quarter ended March, on account of a one-time bonus to employees and a higher tax expense.
The company, which expects revenue in FY22 to grow in double digits in constant currency terms, also announced a special interim dividend of ₹10 per share to mark the $10-billion annual revenue milestone. This will be in addition to a dividend of ₹6 per share declared by the company.
HCL Technologies had reported a net profit of ₹3,154 crore in January-March 2020 quarter as per U.S. GAAP. During the most recent quarter, the company had announced a special one-time bonus for employees worth ₹700 crore, to mark the crossing of $10-billion revenue milestone in 2020. The company’s net income stood at ₹2,962 excluding the bonus.
The company’s revenue grew 5.7% to ₹19,642 crore. For FY21, consolidated net profit increased 17.6% to ₹13,011 crore, while revenue grew 6.7% to ₹75,379 crore.
“We posted a robust Q4 and a full-year FY21 performance, reflecting the strong relevance and resilience of our business model...for the full-year we posted revenue growth of 1.1% in constant currency despite the headwinds caused by the pandemic-related spending cuts that we witnessed in the first quarter and to some extent in the second quarter as well.” HCL Technologies president and CEO C. Vijayakumar said.
He added that HCL Technologies signed $3.1 billion worth of net new deals in the fourth quarter, up 49% year-on-year, making it the “the highest ever quarterly booking in net new deals”. For FY21, the company signed $7.3 billion worth of net new deals, up 18%.
“We won 19 large deals, many of them are very transformational in nature for our clients and our pipeline is also at an all-time high as we exit FY21. Both the booking and pipeline have been very broad-based…”, Mr Vijayakumar said.
He added that despite the uncertainties posed by the pandemic, the company was entering FY22 with “great confidence on the foundation of the brilliant performance” in FY21.
The CEO added that the company was expanding its offerings into new markets. “Looking ahead, we continue to be confident of the market environment and the relevance of our solutions and services vis-s-vis the emerging needs of our clients. We continue to expand our offerings into new markets, especially large ones which are increasingly amenable to global delivery models such as Germany, France, Canada, Australia and Japan, as well as growing our footprint in geographies like Mexico, Brazil and Spain,” he said.
Mr. Vijayakumar added that the company will enhance its investments in ‘Mode 2’ services primarily to address the demand in engineering and R&D services for digital engineering in areas such as 5G and industry 4.0. “We are also updating our cloud-native offerings under a broad theme called ‘Cloud Smart’ that addresses the emerging needs of our customers in the hybrid cloud world,” he said.
The company will also invest in delivery capabilities as it expands offerings and market reach. “In FY22, we will see continued focus in evolving tech talent globally, and further strengthening our offshore and nearshore delivery centres in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Canada and Eastern Europe,” he said, adding that this would be supported by additional delivery centres onsite, primarily in its largest market — the U.S.
“We will hire and groom more than 15,000 entry-level hires not only in India but across our geographies, including the U.S. and Canada,” he said.
