BENGALURU (Reuters) – IT services firm HCL Technologies Ltd on Wednesday raised its full-year revenue growth forecast and reported a 7.1% rise in September-quarter profit, helped by a rise in new order wins.
The Noida-based company raised its fiscal 2023 revenue growth forecast to 13.5% to 14.5% from 12% to 14% on a constant currency basis, citing strong order bookings and pipeline.
Indian IT services companies’ profit jumped last year as they rode the pandemic-driven demand, but results this quarter have been mixed.
While Wipro posted a drop in profit, Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s largest IT services provider, beat profit estimates but warned of weakness in long-term deals.
Recession-wary U.S. and European clients are expected to tighten their budgets, which will hit profits at Indian IT services firms.
HCL narrowed its earnings before income tax (EBIT) margins for year-ending March 2023 to 18% to 19% from previous forecast of 18% to 20%.
EBIT margins for the second quarter ending Sept. 30 stood at 18%, up from 17% in the previous quarter.
The value of HCL’s new deal wins for the quarter stood at $2.38 billion, an increase of 6% from the year ago period.
“Our services business grew 5.3% QoQ and 18.9% YoY in constant currency, led by strong demand for cloud, engineering and digital services,” Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director C Vijayakumar said.
HCL said its net profit rose 7.1% to 34.89 billion Indian rupees ($424.18 million) for the second quarter. Analysts had expected a profit of 34.08 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.
Revenue from operations jumped 19.5% to 246.86 billion rupees.
($1 = 82.2520 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
