Noida-based HCL posted a net profit of ₹3,593 crore for the March quarter, up 24% from a year earlier, excluding the impact of a one-time bonus paid to employees and tax expenses in the same period last year. Profit topped the consensus estimate of ₹3,322 crore in a Bloomberg poll.
Revenue for the March quarter rose 15% from a year earlier to ₹22,597 crore in line with Bloomberg estimate of ₹22,640 crore. Revenue was driven by the services business which recorded a compound quarterly growth rate (CQGR) of 5.2% for three straight quarters. Revenue for the full-year ended 31 March jumped 13.6% to ₹85,651 crore on the back of strong performance by business segments led by its digital business or ‘Mode 2’ that grew 31.8% in constant currency.
HCL’s dollar revenue in the quarter grew 13.3% annually in constant currency to $2.99 billion, boosted by new deal wins and acceleration in clients’ digital agenda.
“Over the last three quarters, our services business has been consistently growing organically at 5% and higher, delivering one of the highest CQGR in the industry. Our overall growth on YoY basis stands at 12.7%, which is better than the guidance, led by strong momentum in digital, cloud and engineering services. We continue to invest proactively to create a larger talent pool to address the demand," said C. Vijayakumar, HCL’s chief executive and managing director.
Meanwhile, the company’s attrition rate in the March quarter rose to 21.9% from 9.9% in the previous year and 19.8% in the December quarter, indicating demand for technology talent continues to outstrip supply. The high attrition rate is expected to ease gradually during the course of this financial year.
HCL made record net addition of 39,900 employees during FY22, boosting its total headcount to 208,877. It hired 22,859 freshers during the year, which it expects to increase by 50% this year.
“HCL’s revenue growth is in line with the trends we see in the market. HCL has deep industry expertise which aligns with the current requirements. It has developed industry solutions that can deploy quickly and provide agility to businesses. It has created a large number of industry cloud solutions to serve different segments of the industry…HCL will have to deal with attrition rates and drive transformations faster to reduce the legacy workload," said D.D. Mishra, senior director analyst, Gartner.
