Cognizant powers past TCS,Infosys again in revenue growth

After TCS,Infosys,Wipro,HCL Technologies posted strong results,Cognizant showcased its own profit.

After the top-four Indian IT companies (TCS,Infosys,Wipro,HCL Technologies) posted strong September-quarter results,US-headquartered software-services firm Cognizant on Tuesday carried that cheery earnings momentum several notches ahead by recording a 6.4% sequential jump in quarterly profit,backed by buoyancy in outsourcing services and discretionary spend.

Seeing an increased demand for its services,the Nasdaq-listed IT company revised upward its full-year revenue outlook for the second time this year to 20.3% from its earlier projection of 19%.

For the July-September stretch,Cognizant,which has most of its employees based in India,recorded a sequential dollar revenue growth of 6.7%,ahead of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS),Indias largest IT-services exporter,which posted a revenue growth of 5.4%. Bangalore-headquartered Infosys Ltd had a sequential growth of 3.8% during the same period followed by HCL Technologies at 3.5% and Wipro recording a growth of 2.7%.

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During the quarter,Cognizants revenue stood at $2.31 billion from $1.89 billion,up 21.9% a year ago,while TCS recorded a revenue of $3.33 billion in the quarter ending September. Over the last one year Cognizant was the only non-Indian software-services firm that was busy disrupting the

Indian IT pecking order. It first outperformed Wipro and then last year,it edged past Infosys in the quarterly revenue growth rate. During the March quarter,Cognizant even moved ahead of TCS in sequential dollar revenue growth.

For the quarter,the New Jersey-based IT firm recorded a net income of $319.6 million against $276.9 million,in the corresponding period last year,recording a year-on-year growth of 15.4%. We delivered yet another quarter of industry-leading growth that was broad-based across our portfolio of industries,services and geographies, said Cognizant CEO Francisco DSouza.

In comparison,the TCS profit figure was more than double that of Cognizants at $748 million during the September quarter. Indias second-largest IT company Infosys had delivered a net profit of $383 million during the same period.

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However,Cognizants revenue from the North American region surpassed TCS by a narrow margin of $8 million during the quarter on strong discretionary spend. The New-Jersey headquartered company registered a revenue of $1.783 billion from North America recording a sequential growth of 6.3% while for TCS it was $1.775 billion,growing at 3.7%.

North America is one of the largest markets for the Indian IT-BPO industry accounting for over 60% of the revenues. This region contributed 77.3% of Cognizants revenue at the end of September quarter,while for TCS it was 53.2%. The rivalry between the two companies on revenue from North America has been around for quite some time with Cognizant consistently narrowing the gap over the last couple of quarters. For Cognizant,revenue from Europe increased 37% to $414.7 million during the quarter.