Infosys Technologies CEO Vishal Sikka during a press conference to announce the 3rd quarter results of the company at its headquarters in Bengaluru, Jan. 14. (Shailendra Bhojak | PTI)

Dipen Shah, senior vice president and head of Private Client Group Research at Kotak Securities, said Infosys’ results beat estimates for the third successive quarter. In dollar terms, Infosys posted 0.4% jump in net profit to $524 million during the third quarter, while revenue was up 8.5% to $2.4 billion. (#Infosys, #VishalSikka, #Siliconeer, @Siliconeer, #Business)

“We believe that newer initiatives like zero distance, design thinking, automation, etc. will shore up the growth rates of Infosys and sustain margins over the longer term.”

In dollar terms, Infosys posted 0.4% jump in net profit to $524 million during the third quarter, while revenue was up 8.5% to $2.4 billion.

Its profit was higher 2% from Rs. 3,398 crore in July-September 2015 quarter, while revenues grew 1.7% from Rs. 15,635 crore in the second quarter of FY 2015-16.

“We do expect to get to industry leading growth in fiscal 2017 which is the financial year beginning in April, we feel confident about that…,” Sikka said.

Infosys Technologies CEO Vishal Sikka laughs during a press conference to announce the 3rd quarter results of the company at its headquarters in Bengaluru, Jan. 14. (Shailendra Bhojak | PTI)
Infosys Technologies CEO Vishal Sikka laughs during a press conference to announce the 3rd quarter results of the company at its headquarters in Bengaluru, Jan. 14. (Shailendra Bhojak | PTI)

During the said quarter, Infosys added 75 (gross) clients taking the number of active clients to 1,045.

On the hiring front, it added 5,407 people in October-December 2015 to take the total head count to 1,93,383.

Infosys has also been able to bring down attrition rates (annualized consolidated) from 21.3% in December 2014 and 19.9% in September 2015 to 18.1% in the said quarter.

Responding to a question whether the company under promised and over delivered after three quarters of industry leading growth, Sikka said, “the guidance is based on what we see right now and what we think we will end up at.”

“There is no more or less to it.”

Asked whether Infosys has got its ‘mojo’ back, he said “one thing I can say is there is a tremendous sense of positive energy in the campus. There is a great spirit of enthusiasm and creative confidence. I distinctly feel that compared to one year ago, even compared to six months ago, I feel that whenever I talk to employees,” Sikka added.

Once an industry bellwether, Infosys lost out to rivals like Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies in terms of growth. Besides, it faced other issues like attrition and an exodus of senior-level executives.

Infosys, under the leadership of Sikka, is targeting an aspirational goal of $20 billion in topline by 2020.