TCS beats Street to post 23% higher Q4 net

 Tuesday, Apr 24, 2012

Mumbai: India’s largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Monday reported earnings for the three months to March, 2012, which crossed analysts’ estimates. The company said profit after tax rose 23% year-on-year to R2,932 crore ($556 million), higher than the median R2,830 crore of 44 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. 

Earnings per share for the year to March 2012 was R54.40. The TCS stock closed 2.8% lower on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) at R1059.25 — the results were announced after the market closed.
“The TCS numbers are line with our expectations and that clearly means that Infosys's poor results are a company-specific issue and not a sectoral problem,” observed Rakesh Arora, MD, Macquarie Securities. Infosys has lost 16% since it announced results on April 13, 2012.
TCS posted earnings before interest and tax (Ebit) margins of 27.7% in the March quarter, ahead of expectations, while Ebit came in at R3,672 crore. Revenues were strong at R13,259 crore.
Said TCS CEO & MD N Chandrasekaran: “We have carried our strong momentum through the fourth quarter to close out a year of strong growth. We have kept our focus on profitability and consolidated our market leadership.” Chandrasekaran added that TCS has signed three large deals in BFSI and done well. He observed that growth in North America had been good in the fourth quarter while Europe had been phenomenal. “Growth has been flat, but we should grow. The good thing about this quarter is that we have grown on all verticals, on a constant currrency basis. BFSI is flat,” the CEO explained. Commenting on hiring and bench strength, Chandrasekaran said: “We have a huge bench now, training has been completed and ready for deployment. We’ve made offers to 45,000 freshers.”
For 2011-12, TCS reported revenues of over $10 billion; annual revenues were up 31% at R48,894 crore ($10.17 billion).
The company had 14 clients billing $100 million or more, compared witheight in 2010-11. Net profit for 2011-12 came in at Rs 10,638 crore ($2.2 billion), up 22%. Gross additions during the year were 70,400 while net additions were 39,969. The company now employs 2,83,583 people.