Software major Infosys pleasantly surprised the markets on Friday when it beat expectations and posted a rise in both revenues and profits for the April-June quarter, and more important, gave a steady outlook to suggest it was poised to bounce back on the high-growth path.
Net profit for the first quarter of the current fiscal year rose 3.7% from the same period a year ago to Rs 2,374 crore, but more than the number, a surge of optimism seemed to be in the air following the return of the company's iconic co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as executive chairman to revive the fortunes of the company that has been lagging peers for about two years now.
The worst seemed to be over, some analysts said.
Murthy did not offer comments on the results on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}Murthy did not offer comments on the results on Friday.
{{/usCountry}}Shares of Infosys, which has an army of 157,000 techies, shares first zoomed by 15% and closed up by 11 % to R2,803 on the BSE, while the overall benchmark Sensex rose by 1.44%.
Some analysts were expecting Infosys to cut its full-year growth forecasts but it maintained revenue growth outlook unchanged at 6-10%, and that was good enough for the markets.
“The company was being “cautiously optimistic” about the rest of the year.
April-June net profit was down 0.8% in rupee terms compared to the January-March 2013 quarter. In dollar terms the profit grew 0.5% to $418 million.
Infosys’s revenues during the quarter stood at Rs 11,267 crore, which was up 17.2% from the same period of last fiscal. In dollar terms the revenue was up 13.6% year-on-year to $1.99 billion.