Indomitable Infy shows how it's done

India’s second largest information technology company Infosys Technologies raced ahead by 36 per cent and 33 per cent for the quarter ended December 31, 2008.

Riding a depreciating rupee during the quarter and the addition of 30 new clients, the revenues and profits of India’s second largest information technology company Infosys Technologies raced ahead by 36 per cent and 33 per cent for the quarter ended December 31, 2008.

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“Rupee helped a lot as it depreciated by 11 per cent and had a positive impact of 4.7 per cent on margins,” V. Balakrishnan, chief financial officer, Infosys, told HT. “We are going to focus on the per capita revenue and margins.”

Markets cheered the result as the Infosys stock rose 6.4 per cent, taking the IT index up 4.7 per cent in anticipation of repeat performance from other companies. Market experts, however, were cautious.

“Infosys gained on volume and had low hedging and thus benefited more due to the rupee depreciation,” said Gaurav Dua, head of research, Sharekhan. “This might not be the case for others.”

Infosys added four major deals in its client addition during the quarter, with 10 waiting, Balakrishnan said. “We did not witness any loss of clients and any cancellation of projects. But there has been a slowdown in the velocity of business.”

That is not surprising, given the meltdown that is forcing companies in the US and EU to “preserve cash and spend less”, he said. Keeping a longer term perspective, Infosys has been working closely with select clients to see how prices can be cut.

But despite clients streaming in from Satyam to Infosys, “we’ll not approach any of their clients”, said S. Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD, Infosys.